


city dreaming of you

by dullboyinc



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Tozier tease, M/M, Richie calls him Eddie-baby more than Eds oops, Slow Burn Ish, a bunch of basic bed sharing, but they dont want to leave each other, eddie wants to go to NYC, hanbrough and stenbrough crumbs bc i cant decide, high school reddie, mentions of anxiety and depression, richie is a slut for eddie, richie wants to go to LA, stanley uris is a Yale boy!!!, stanpat cause i said so, the clown happened but you can barely tell, titanic references lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22537819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dullboyinc/pseuds/dullboyinc
Summary: los angeles is calling richie tozier, and he wants to pick up the phone so badly he could cry, but he knows that new york city is calling eddie kaspbrak, and he knows that eddie is going to answer. but for now they'll share a bed and hold hands and worry about that later.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	1. seven different ways inside my heart

High school. Specifically Derry High School, with its chalky red-chili-pepper brick walls that stood securely against harsh winter winds, solid from the natural, unnatural, and even supernatural dangers outside, but insensible of the disasters that take place within the brick barriers. People -young people, at that- sulking down the bare hallways, depressed and lonely, miserable and filled to the brim with uncomfortableness in their own bodies. Fifteen and sixteen year olds pulling large sweaters over pale skin, hiding purple and green bruises, physical and mental ones, that blossomed at home, where they felt even more unwanted, neglected, alone. Some of them healing, while some of them never would, and being the human versions of an open wound at a place where they’d only be beaten worse took its toll. White stone walls looked down upon the broken children, clutching books to their bodies and avoiding eye contact with everyone, as if they’d be shot dead right there for doing anything else, the maroon lockers symbolized the blood of a body trying to function in a skeleton that has no skin. There was nothing to hold the blood inside, so it oozed out over the moonstone colored bones and onto the blood red brick walls, splashing the misfortunes back into the open wounds. 

One teenage girl hiding in the bathroom stall at lunch, smoking a cigarette in the dress she wore every other day, because it was all she had. No friends to eat with, no clean air to breathe, no money for new clothes. She had nothing. Nothing except for bruises and boots, freckles and a house key, flaming red hair and a torn up backpack. One teenage boy who was overweight and extremely insecure, loads more insecure than the lone smoker in the bathroom stall, sat in the bathroom next door, unknowingly in the same exact stall, with a skeleton bone wall separating the two open wounds that were Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom. The teenage boy was fat, with a pudgy stomach and chubby cheeks, always picked last in gym class and always sat alone on the old leather seats of the school bus on field trips. But his skin was soft and his eyes were bright, his teeth were straight and his smile nice, and his mother loved to cuddle with him on the couch when he let her, because he was sweeter than the chocolate fudge cake on his tenth birthday. Everyone looked past that though, because he was fat. In the eggshell-brick and burgundy-wine hallways, he walked as quickly as possible, careful not to touch anyone or draw attention to himself, and then he would make it to his next classroom, out-of-breath and sighing in relief when nobody bothered him. Because that’s why they hid in the bathroom stalls at lunch, Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom, because being bothered inside of a skinless skeleton only rubbed salt into already-opened wounds. 

Days at school should’ve been considered battles, as there were handfuls of students who woke up every day in need of preparation just to walk into the belly of the beast. Walking onto a war-field, it felt like, because they were soldiers who hadn’t done anything wrong, yet were being targeted and blown up by people who did everything wrong. People who were so heartless that they made a game out of bullying other people for things as minuscule as the clothes they were wearing or parts of their body they couldn’t control. Like the color of their skin or their sexuality. Or their religion, as Stanley Uris would know about all-too-well. Luckily for Stan, the only Jewish kid in town, he already had a few established friends once the tormenting began. Not that he was lucky at all for being tormented for his beliefs, but unlike the teenagers hiding in the bathroom stalls, Stan wasn’t alone in his misery. In fact, his companions were equally targeted, maybe more or less, but still targeted, and they wept together instead of alone, or in their mother’s arms, because at least Ben had a supportive mother, Beverly had nobody. 

Home trauma leaks into students’ bodies like diseases, even when they are gone, when they’ve fled the most contaminated parts of the virus, the disease lingers in their hearts and on their minds. The thing about home trauma is sometimes the body doesn’t even realize something is wrong- Beverly Marsh, for example, has an awareness that what she experiences at home isn’t normal, she’s diseased and injured, her soul needs help and she knows it. But take someone as innocent and as naive as Eddie Kaspbrak, and the scans of the virus are much different. There’s a part of him that knows something about his home life contrasts with his friends’ and their home lives, but the awareness he has of such a traumatic and wildly spreading disease is so underwhelming that it might as well not even be there. Everything stems from love to Eddie Kaspbrak. He’s a lover, not a fighter, and he would definitely add on the cheesy line about fighting for what he loves, because it is true, and he is bold and brave and everything that comes with those words, but he is also extremely oblivious to the abuse he has endured his whole life. Because his mother loves him, she coddles him, protects him, babies him. Because his mother loves him, she controls him, manipulates him, mentally abuses him. And because Eddie loves his mother, he lets her. After all, that sort of love is how he grew up, he’s used to being loved in a controlling, abusive, unhealthy way...that is love, to him, or at least he thinks it should be. But when he sits down and really thinks about love, and the way he wants to take care of people and make them happy, he realizes that his love is different. And he doesn’t know why he doesn’t love the same way his mother does, but he’s grateful for it, and he doesn’t know why that is, either. As are his friends, who watch Eddie and his situation as if he were a fish in a bowl on their dresser, all too timid to say anything or point it out, because he was defensive about things like that, and Beverly wasn’t- that was another difference that they’d soon find out. Talk shit about her father and she’d join in, whereas Eddie would yell at them to cut it out, because that’s his mom and she loves him. Nothing would ever stop the endless amounts of insults being thrown at her from Richie Tozier, though. And maybe Eddie appreciated it deep down, because then he knew someone was going to push the boundaries he had set up, regardless of how many times he tried to defend her, as the other boys would respectfully cut it out and Richie would not, because Eddie had to know he hated her. Just had to. Even if that meant joking about fucking her or kissing her or touching her- everyone knew Sonia Kaspbrak was a dead-woman-walking to Richie Tozier, who claimed that karma would do her in worse than it did Walter Peck in Ghostbusters. 

Speaking of Richie Tozier, with his loud mouth and his inability to filter the majority of the thoughts floating around in his brain, which were a lot and they were sometimes so out-of-the-ordinary someone might believe they’re dreaming when listening to him. There’s something oddly charming about him, despite his awkwardly long legs and thick glasses and ugly clothes, people loved him and cared about him an immense amount, considering the shit he went through with others. The same people calling Beverly Marsh a slut, Ben Hanscom fat, Stan Uris religious slurs, and making fun of the noticeably shorter Eddie Kaspbrak and his inhaler, were shoving Richie’s head into the closest toilet they could find. And almost every time he went home crying to himself with his hair dripping toilet water down his body, soaking his shirt and splattering his cracked glasses, it was due to the fact that he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. When people attempted damaging his friends with their words or their fists, or when they approached him looking for a fight, he usually defended himself better than anyone else did, verbally at least, which lead to even worse consequences. Being smarted off to wasn’t something bullies particularly enjoyed. And he was the tallest amongst his friends and wasn’t physically or mentally weak, but up against three boys who were older and stronger and just plain big, Richie stood no chance. But the biggest struggles he faced were the ones inside his head, since he had a nice family and a decently nice home life, all that he fought in his house were the monsters hiding in the depths of his mind. Telling him to let it go, it would never happen, he’s wrong for feeling this way...and he would cry then too, because he wanted something so badly that the world didn’t want him to have. Richie’s a lover too, but he loved the wrong person and he loved them so deeply that sometimes he wished he didn’t, just so it would stop. The aching, the yearning...it hurt him, and the monsters made it hurt worse. Most of the time they did more damage than the monsters at school, because his shirt always dried and he always got new glasses and his busted lip always healed, but his heart stayed empty and soul stayed lonely. 

There was a time at school when Ben Hanscom watched from afar as Henry Bowers and his friends pulled Richie Tozier along the powdered-sugar sprinkled hallway and into the comfort of the very bathroom where he spent his lunch hour inside of. Obviously, that’s far from how Richie would view the dirty-looking white tiles and dirty-looking bathroom stalls, because Ben observed every inch of that bathroom and he came to love how he felt somewhat safe in there for an hour every day. When the bullies got after him, for whatever reason they mainly picked to do it outside, and maybe it was so they’d force Ben to run and make fun of the way his belly moved while doing so. They could chase him in the belly of the beast, but outside they were free to do so with no interruptions. Not that any teachers ever really did anything about them, most were women who were scared of Henry themselves, and if not, they’d stay quiet anyway. But Ben watched Richie disappear behind the bathroom door and then waited until the three monsters paraded back out proudly, looking accomplished. Then he saw Richie emerge a little while later, checking around his shoulder hastily to see where Henry and his friends had gone, looking to see if anyone noticed how his hair was soaking wet and that his glasses were cracked. Ben contemplated going up to him and to ask if he was okay. See if he wanted to talk about it, cuss the boys out or something (Ben didn’t cuss, but he knew Richie did), and mainly he just wanted to make a friend who went through the same thing that he did. But then he watched as Eddie Kaspbrak rounded the corner, his backpack flinging wildly against his small back, his neat hair flopping shamelessly against his head, his little body bouncing on his velcro shoes as he looked for his friend. And he practically screeched Richie’s name into the empty, skinless hallway, taking his glasses off his face to wipe them dry and mutter profanities under his breath. Then he put them back onto Richie’s face, very gently, Ben noticed, and then they looked at each other for a second, and Ben wondered what was up with that. Richie started to pout and he looked away, and Ben wondered if he was going to cry and if Eddie was going to laugh at him. But then Eddie asked if he was okay, and Richie said that he was fine, just wet, and he said something about his dick, Ben couldn’t hear, and Eddie scoffed. Just as they started leaning in, as if they were going to hug, or embrace each other (Ben decided that if they had gotten to hug, it would’ve been one of those hugs you see in movies, where the tall one lifts the shorter one off their feet and swings them around), two other people rounded the corner and Eddie backed away quicker than Bill Denbrough shouted, “Shit!”

Bill Denbrough, the one with the dead brother and the stutter and the dumb flashlight he carried around trying to find said-dead brother, shouting orders at his friends with said-stutter. Almost completely normal for a white, Christian boy in Derry. Nice house on a nice street with other nice houses, financially stable family, married parents, attractive face and charismatic personality. Only, when he opened his mouth he couldn’t get three words out without stumbling over his own tongue, and if you mentioned the word “boat” around him, he’d probably punch someone in the face or bust out crying. As if his brother being dead and him believing it was all his fault, Bill’s parents basically don’t give one single shit about him anymore, so that’s always a lovely home to walk into after leaving such a hell-hole of a school. Most days Bill is fine, he has his friends to talk to and walk with and lean on, he doesn’t get picked on as horrendously as the others do, because if people looked past his stutter, then he was a pretty normal guy on the outside, and bland people like Greta Bowie and Henry Bowers cherished normalcy. But some days Bill felt extremely depressed, even with his friends to cheer him up, because something hot and metal pressed harshly against his heart, like a branding iron pressing marks inside of him, leaving a welted, scarred burn to sting for the rest of his life. A leader, he seemed to be, even amongst his mere friend group of four, and the isolation he experienced at home only encouraged his independence even more. He was brave and whole, admirable and righteous. And quite frankly, he has the credit of bringing them all together. 

Nothing in Derry and especially nothing with this group of open-wounds is complete without the band-aid that is Mike Hanlon. Think about being at the grocery store and trying to pick out the best apple on display, thumbing through bruised and scraped apples, ones that are too yellow or too green, apples with ugly bumps or ones that just aren’t satisfying. But then comes the one, the one that is perfectly shaped and vibrant and satisfying. And the feeling of approval washes around like a tidal wave, because the rest were simply not good enough. Mike Hanlon is the good apple, he is pure and he is virtuous. The biggest heart he could manage, he has, and he pours his love into the people he cares about like he just can’t stop it, and maybe sometimes he tries to but it seeps through his fingers like trying to eat soup with a fork. Anyone friends with him knows they are loved and cared for, because Mike would rather die than watch someone he’s close to suffer. But he goes through hard times just as the rest of them do, if not the hardest, due to the simple fact that he is black and has a different skin color than anyone else in Derry. Almost everywhere he goes people stare at him, murmur hurtful words behind his back, act better than him, and he tries to hold his head high, look past it, be the bigger person. But he’s just a kid, he wants to fight back, to defend himself, but he knows that would just make it worse. And he doesn’t really want to fight anyone, because of his golden heart, all he really wants is to be accepted for who he is. Derry is the perfect example of small American towns that consist of small-minded, racist, homophobic, radical white people who believe they are superior human beings solely because they are white and straight and have different views. Yet, their skin is white and they couldn’t be any dirtier. Filthy, actually, with their gardens soiled with poison and dead plants. Walk alongside the rows of rose bushes and they’re brown, rotten, and the air reeks of hatred that was planted there hundreds and hundreds of years before, by the same putrid, bigoted Caucasion ancestors who lived their lives dehumanizing whole races, sexualities, and cultures. The sky is grey with death and negativity, the brown, leafless trees outlined in the bleak wind, with perished flowers and dead grass, and a garden with no soul. No water to revive them, no love in their hearts to save them, they are practically heartless anyway. Brainless, too, and seemingly pointless with no other purpose than the hate they bring. Just empty bodies with white skin. 

What is the most beautifully ironic part of it all is that Mike Hanlon’s garden is one of the prettiest gardens there is, with bright blue sky and tweeting birds. Fluffy white clouds and trees full of vibrant green leaves, the grass equally green and healthy and moist. Rich brown soil home of colorful flowers that pop out like they’re from another dimension. Dazzling rivers of water with lovely waterfalls, extravagant noises of the singing birds mixing with the flow of the crystal-clear streams. Walking through Mike’s garden is reviving, powerful, spiritual, like nothing bad could ever happen there. Because there isn’t an ounce of hate in his body, he loves everyone, even after they show him their gardens. His soul rests joyfully inside of his garden, colorful and warm and beautiful. Mike Hanlon deserves the world, but a better one, rid of the hate-driven, empty bodies that inhabit his current one.

Welcome to the Losers Club.

__________________________________

Finally, after a few solid years of the friend group consisting solely of Bill, Stan, Eddie, and Richie, came the proper list of Losers in the club. Richie said that it was like they were collecting baseball cards (something Bill was passionate about and something Richie couldn’t have cared less about) and they had just been waiting on the last three to own the complete set of cards. This happened when they were all thirteen, the one summer of course, after Georgie and after certain activities that were the least summer-vacation-esque as possible. But now it was almost the summer after their senior year of high school, and the Losers Club were closer than ever. Not to mention the fact that they were all unnaturally hot. For a group of seven people, you’d think at least one of them would be the least attractive friend, but they were all...hot. Bill, Beverly, and Richie were all eighteen already, and the rest would be turning eighteen over the summer, except for one of them. Eddie baby, Richie would say when they talked about their birthdays, since Eddie’s wasn’t until November and he was younger than all of them. And, it was clear that Eddie was practically Richie’s baby. They weren’t dating, weren’t even close to any sort of confession, but things happened sometimes. No kissing or anything serious, nothing to flat-out reveal the iceberg they were bound to crash into. Think of the Titanic, when they see the tip of the iceberg and try to avoid it, but they hit it anyway and they know the ship will sink. It was inevitable. And although Richie and Eddie had come close, they hadn’t hit their iceberg yet. Nicked it, maybe, but again, nothing serious. 

The first few weeks after that one summer were strange, like a dream that never really ended but only became clearer in your mind. Eddie was quite frankly a mess. Richie was too, but only when he was alone, eyeing the sink drain when he was brushing his teeth or getting shampoo in his eyes every time he showered because he didn’t want to keep his eyes closed for so long. To everyone else he seemed to be handling everything better than they were. Until he couldn’t do that anymore, the fear inside of him swelling up like a kernel of popcorn and he was sitting inside of a ticking microwave waiting to explode all over the place. When the kernel busted open and the soft yellow butterfly flourished, he was with his own bowl of butter, making the whole thing less awful than it had to be. He had climbed through Eddie’s window that night after they had complained about the lack of sleep they were both getting. This conversation was one of those nick-the-iceberg moments, because when Eddie had suggested that they sleep together, Richie boldly questioned whether or not that would make them boyfriends, and Eddie regretfully told him to forget it, that he’d ask Bill or Stan. But of course he never asked Bill nor Stan, and he left his window perched open for Richie’s arrival that they both knew would happen regardless of Eddie telling him to forget it or not. 

That night they were lying there in Eddie’s bed, extremely innocent and as thirteen as ever, with Richie’s voice cracking harshly and Eddie’s unwelcomed pimple resting on his forehead. Facing each other and facing the worries in their heads together, because Eddie was scared of what could be hiding in the dark and Richie was scared of the way his heart was beating so loudly in his chest at the way Eddie’s hand was right there next to his. At the way Eddie’s hair looked messy and tousled around like he’d been riding in a car with all of the windows down. At the way Eddie’s chest moved seriously under his soft blue tshirt, with a purpose and with a heart beating probably just as loudly, but Richie never realized. He watched Eddie whisper into the dim room, the way his mouth formed certain words and how his lips touched each other so sweetly. And there was the fact that Eddie was the cutest person he had ever seen, the way his skin was so tanned from the summer sun, his freckles exploded across his cheeks and nose, his shorts that stopped in the middle of his thighs, and the way he giggled so quietly when Richie joked, muffled against his hand in an attempt to keep this a secret from his mother in the next room. They were just young, twelve and thirteen, still with somewhat child-like ways of thinking about the world, but Richie wasn’t stupid. He knew that he was in love, thirteen is young but it’s not stupid, maybe a little dramatic and maybe not quite true yet, but they would get older and Richie knew. He was in love. 

Months went by with more one-on-one sleepovers and more near nick-the-iceberg situations, because Richie and Eddie found a deep solace when they slept in the same bed together, like nothing bad could happen to them there. Just like in Mike’s garden. Perhaps they were creating their own gardens within each other, planting small gestures of love and watering already blooming flowers to keep them alive. If Richie had a flower for every time he thought of Eddie, he’d walk in his garden forever. He read that somewhere, and he cried afterwards, because he thought that he was a lost cause. A boy hopelessly in love with his boy best friend. Sharing a bed when nights were so lonely and touching their hands together when the thought of one’s disappearance unsettled the other. Nights were spent talking till their throats hurt, Eddie and his droopy brown eyes and raspy voice, Richie the opposite, with alert eyes and crisp voice, hanging on to each word Eddie said, like it would be the last he’d ever hear. And Eddie would close his eyes for the last time that night and he’d fall asleep, leaving Richie to wonder why he was so fucking cute for no reason, and wonder why he didn’t love him back. If the window was left open Richie would shove those thoughts right out and onto the street, stomping them into the storm drains, away from him and away from Eddie. Things were fine how they were. If he did anything to ruin it, ruin him, ruin Eddie, ruin them...he would never forgive himself. 

But after a few more years of bed-sharing and hand-holding, accidentally falling into a seriously domestic routine with each other in Eddie’s bedroom, sometimes Richie’s, they turned sixteen and everything became extremely difficult for the both of them. Especially difficult for Richie, since Eddie had always been the ultimate king of repression, and even then he had stopped deflecting so many of Richie’s not-so-repressed touches. They were older, both taller but Richie still had about six inches over Eddie and liked to rest his head on top of Eddie’s when they were watching Bill play Dig Dug at the arcade. Now when they shared a bed and Richie rolled over, he would take most of the blankets with him because his body was positively much bigger than before. His limbs were all long and bony, but he had that natural layer of lean muscles on his arms and his calves, and he was quite clumsy with them, like he didn’t truly realize how long he was until he was trying to climb into Bill’s hand-me-down jeep and his legs knocked into the door and smashed into the dashboard. Or when he was wrestling with Eddie, trying to pin him down and instead accidentally knocking him into the wall, apologizing profusely with a kiss on the cheek. And it was when he realized how big he actually was when he realized just how little Eddie was. His clothes and his shoes were a few sizes smaller and he took up barely any room in the bed, and when he walked alongside Richie he had to look up towards the sky to look at his lips (not exactly that high, but his eyes always wandered past Richie’s black mop of hair to the sky to burn a picture of the artwork into his memory). Richie was almost obsessed with Eddie’s size, like he just wanted to pick him up and carry him around all day, bask in the smallness. But he knew that size meant nothing when it came to the emotion Eddie held inside of him. He was powerful, he was dangerous, addicting, and Richie never got enough. They both had somewhat deeper voices, Eddie’s had dropped but wasn’t extremely low, and Richie’s had basically fallen off of a cliff, like his voice left Eddie’s knees weak when he woke up asking for water in a raspy sleep-tangled request. And he started sleeping with his shirt off, which was a weird step for them, because at first they hardly touched each other, and now Eddie would wake up with Richie’s bare chest pressed against his arm, but they still hadn’t hit that iceberg. Richie wanted to though, he almost begged to hit the damn thing already, he wanted to sink into the sea of Eddie Kaspbrak and everything that came with it. He didn’t care if that meant freezing to death in the water, being eaten by sharks, drowning under waves in vast, open ocean. He didn’t care. He wanted it. Wanted Eddie, when he’d fall asleep first and would pull Richie to him in his sleep. When he wouldn’t fall asleep first and they’d talk, glancing at each other’s lips, glancing at other places. At school they would walk beside each other in the hallway and their hands would brush, but they knew they could only hold them when they were in bed, about to fall asleep, convincing themselves that was the only acceptable time. When they shared the hammock in the club house, Richie would notice how Eddie would lean into him so shamelessly, and how when he’d sometimes hold onto his leg, Eddie would turn a little red but he wouldn’t say anything about it. The days of him protesting Richie’s touch were practically over, because that’s where he felt the most safe. Hell, if he can forget that nightmare-ish summer day a few years ago only because Richie is in the bed beside him, then he can forget anything else. 

Actually, they didn’t share a bed every single night like it may seem, but it was a significant amount of time spent together that closely. If anything, Richie stayed at Eddie’s house around three times a week, sometimes more if they had a particularly hard time, and then he’d climb out of the window and ride his skateboard down the road to wait for Eddie for school. Eddie never stayed over during the week, but he would during the weekends if his mom let him, and if not, Richie would be over at his house. This was normal for them, because they used each other to cope with their trauma, and if they were in love before that then it was nothing compared to now. Eddie barely allowed himself to acknowledge it, and he didn’t until they were at least fifteen. And even then, it was just a crush. Richie knew he was in love at thirteen years old and he had the carvings to prove it. R+E, he’d say to himself in the shower, when he was forcing his eyes shut and was trying to wash the shampoo out of his hair without opening them. R+E. Richie and Eddie. He’s fine. They’d keep each other safe. They’re fine.

The rest of the Losers grew too, Bill was losing his stutter very quickly and he had grown to be as tall as Richie, with the same muscles and the same long legs, and now he played baseball. Mike was also just as tall, if not a little taller, and he definitely had bigger muscles already, because he worked tirelessly on the farm and he also started playing football when he decided to start attending Derry High. Which was the best, to have everyone together at school. Beverly was short, the same height as Eddie, and also got called a baby by Richie, even though she was as fierce as ever, and funny too. She really started feeling insecure about her clothes when high school came around, and she cried when her aunt bought her a sewing machine. Her Aunt Melissa moved in with her in the old apartment after the summer, and her dad went to the county jail for a night before being released. Bev hasn’t seen him since, she assumed he moved away, or something...she didn’t really know. But her aunt takes much better care of her and the apartment, and her life has taken a wonderful turn. After a short-lived fling with Bill, they squashed that as quickly as they started it and made all of Ben Hanscom dreams come true when she started spending almost all of her free time with him. Ben grew and his body weight evened out some, and he wasn’t fat anymore, just a little pudgy, but he started running track and he was losing weight fast. He was as tall as Stan, and was probably going to grow, and he was happy about his body, but not as happy as he was when he and Beverly really started to click. And Stanley was tall too, not as tall as Mike, Bill, or Richie, but close, and he was skinnier than anyone else in the group, and also the most knowledgeable about what he wanted to do after high school. Yale. Stanley wanted to go to Yale. For what, he didn’t know, but he liked math and numbers, and he loved boring-adult-stuff, as Richie put it, and he had the highest grade in his elective Business class. Everyone was confident that Stan could get into Yale if he really tried. That scared them, because nobody else was truly sure. They were sixteen, though, so they had plenty of time.


	2. don't you feel like crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is the big boy, and I'm pretty sure it's like twice as long as the first and third chapter, yikes. but oh well, I liked it as a whole so I hope you do too !!

Once time moved on and Richie was seventeen and got his driver's license, even though Eddie insisted he wasn’t ready, he drove his two-door pickup truck to the end of Eddie’s street and waited until he noticed the little blackened silhouette of his best friend walking towards him. Hopping out of the truck, leaving the door wide open, Richie jogged to him and as he approached, Eddie shook his head with a grin across his face. When Richie asked what he was smiling at, Eddie looked back at his house, “I’m free.” 

Of course, Richie didn’t know what to think of that exactly, but he assumed Eddie was talking about his mom, his house...he had never snuck out before, never even tried. The consequences scared him, but Richie convinced him, as he always does, and then he was free. Derry was theirs that night. Driving down main street, passing the empty sidewalks and dark antique stores, not a single person in sight, despite the fact that it was only a little after midnight. Then they drove by the beast, the body with no skin, the high school, and Eddie stuck his tongue out at it, and Richie turned back around and made him do something else, like flip it off, even though the tongue thing was cute. He thought it was even cuter when Eddie stuck his finger out and then looked at it oddly, saying that he doesn’t have a suitable flipping-things-off finger, and that Richie’s middle finger was much more flippable. And then they drove through the country, out towards Mike’s house, and Richie let Eddie drive his truck. Eddie had never driven before, he had turned sixteen four months ago, and he didn’t have a dad to let him take his car out for a spin, and his mother would rather see him kiss Richie on the lips than drive a car yet (that was not true at all, Sonia Kaspbrak would rather find out about the clown that tried to kill her son than the fact that the same son wanted to kiss Richie Tozier). She claimed he was too little, not big enough to withstand a crash, and he needed to let her drive him until he grew some more. But he did perfectly fine, with his knuckles gripping the wheel so tightly they turned white, making Richie turn the radio and his mouth off, which was not very successful, because he wanted to coach Eddie through it, even though there wasn’t much to it on an empty Derry road. And once Eddie made it all the way back into town and could have sworn up and down that he saw a police car hiding behind the general store, he freaked out and stopped the truck right in the middle of the road. They switched seats and Eddie was bursting with energy, happy about his driving success and happy about being free. Richie parked in his driveway about an hour later and Eddie insisted on the fact that he needed to go home. But he didn’t, they sat in the truck almost the whole night, until the sun started coming up and they were both so delirious that Eddie was actually holding Richie’s hand right there between the console. No bed, no sleep, and yet there they were, holding hands and slurring their words about the unknown future ahead. 

Because now Ben was moving. Not yet, but he was leaving the day after graduation and that was next year. Berkeley, California, and now Beverly was in an uproar about going to some fashion school near San Francisco, so that she could be close to Ben and so that her aunt could move back to Oregon and they wouldn’t be but a short plane ride away. None of the boys, besides Stan, knew what they were going to do. They still thought it was too early to even care. But junior year was almost over and the summer would fly by, and they’d have to apply to colleges then anyway. And everyone was ignoring the fact that Yale is on the East Coast and San Francisco on the West Coast. But they brought it up now, holding hands in Richie’s truck, gazing lazily at one another through droopy eyelids, the light blue tint from the sky lighting their faces up just enough. 

“What are we going to do?” Eddie asked sleepily, a simple question with such deep meaning, the future resting right inside of it, hiding itself away. Richie only squeezed onto Eddie’s hand a little tighter, and he said, “Go somewhere together, duh.” 

But Eddie insisted that Richie wouldn’t want to stay with him in the end, that they’d end up wanting to go separate places, and everything would be messed up. Richie stayed calm somehow, he knew that they wouldn’t be able to leave each other, but he was deeply bothered by the fact that the Losers Club would be split up whether they wanted to or not. There were plenty of affirming words leaving his tired mouth to ease his equally as tired companion, but everything stopped when he mumbled, “You can’t just ditch someone you love and move on with your life, Eds, it’s science. Watch any romance movie, they always end up back together, making out and having that ‘I missed you’ sex.” 

The truck was quiet. Too quiet, the radio playing a song so softly Richie had to glance at it to see if it was even on, and then he had to glance towards Eddie to see if he had fallen asleep, or died, or something. But Eddie was looking at him, eyes far from droopy, words far from slurred, and he pulled his hand away. Richie perked up, somewhat alarmed and he pulled his hand back to his own body, staring back. Thick air seeped in through the cracked windows, the sky slowly turned brighter and the clock ticked on, closer to the time when Sonia Kaspbrak was going to wake up and scream when she realized Eddie was gone. Locked eyes seemed to scream at each other, throwing words fast and meaningful, but their mouths stayed closed. Until a car door shut in the driveway next door, and Eddie glanced over at the distraction. When he turned back around, Richie was clicking his seatbelt on and starting to put the truck in reverse. Eddie asked what he was doing, confused and frantically throwing his seatbelt on. 

“Taking you home, I guess. Unless you want to stay with me.” Richie said, looking over before backing out. He glanced at Eddie’s seat belt already clicked in securely, and he smiled a little to himself. Eddie stared, his mouth twitched as he thought, and then he came to a decision and hastily unbuckled, “Fine, but you have to promise me you aren’t going to move very far away from me after high school.” 

Eyes screaming again, hands aching to be held, air just as tense through the windows, and Richie was still smiling, not to himself anymore, but to the world. With his boy beside him, breaking free from his jail-cell house and his prison-guard mother without her knowing, Richie smiled, because Eddie was brave and had no idea. There were things he did have an idea of, like how his friends didn’t have to take such dramatic precautions as he did when he only wanted to hang out with them, how his friends’ mothers didn’t force them to kiss her cheek before they left the house, how they weren’t constantly walking on eggshells in their own homes. Except for maybe Bill now, but rather than walking on eggshells, Bill was stomping on them, begging with loud crunches to be heard. And Richie knew that Eddie knew these things and how they were different, but they never talked about it unless Eddie wanted to, which was hardly ever. Richie had respect for his emotional boundaries, careful not to push him away, and so he held out his pinky finger and said, “Promise, Eddie baby, I’m not goin’ anywhere without you.” 

Pinky fingers latched on to each other, forming a promise that would be intensely destructive if it were broken, as if there were wobbly plates underneath the soft ground Richie and Eddie walked on, waiting to harshly rub together and trigger a rumbling earthquake that would split the Earth open, right below them, and suck them both down. Bodies separated, no contact, just together, but alone. In the core center of the planet, dark and cold and consisting of almost nothing, they would be together, but not together at all, just in their lonesomeness. Because a broken promise is nothing compared to a broken Earth, split open with raw soil and burning insides, and with nothing there to mend it back together. That couldn’t happen. Richie pulled their linked hands to his mouth and pressed his lips to Eddie’s hand, and Eddie did the same to Richie’s, and they let go. Moments later the two were walking into the Tozier house, where Richie scribbled a hasty note to his mom, asking her to call Sonia Kaspbrak and tell her that Eddie was there, and not to answer a single question that was asked. In bed, the sun fully risen and shining pale yellow light into the room, making everything look heavenly and angelic, especially Richie’s pale skin on the crispy blue bed sheets, Eddie’s freckles as he gazed down at said-pale skin. He was sitting with his legs criss-crossed beside Richie, facing him, with a halo around his head and feathery white angel wings on his back. Sixteen and seventeen years old, with their friends kissing and dating and touching people, with their hormones like zooming cars at a constant race around an oval-shaped track, daring each other forward, seeing who would cross the line at the end first. The end, it seemed to be when they thought about it, because once the line was crossed and once the iceberg was smacked into, everything would be over. Where would they go from there, what would they do? The outcomes seemed dark and uncertain, cold like the ground under the Earth, blazing like the center...together, but alone. 

Race cars were built for racing, but not Richie’s, not for so long, anyway. One day he was going to push the gas pedal too roughly and his car was going to shoot over the finish line at the end, and there would be no going back from there. Either he would win or he would lose, regardless of where Eddie’s car was on the oval track, because Eddie’s would never cross the line first. Never. Bravery was a natural characteristic being pumped through his veins at all times, coursing through his blood and fueling his little fiery body, but even the bravest people are so deeply terrified of something, and he would never overcome this, at least not with his hands. Richie would never be touched by Eddie unless he did it first, because Eddie grew up associating physical affection with the unwanted and humiliating touches his mother embarrassed him with. When he was with his friends, the hands reaching towards him were like daggers on a mission to slice him open, to make him feel the same way he felt with his mother, and he didn’t want that. But Richie was quite the opposite, his fingers and his hands were drawn to people like wax on a paper boat, the touch being the best way he communicated his love. Not an hour goes by without him hugging someone, flinging his arms around someone, kissing someone’s cheek, sitting in someone’s lap, because it was harder for him to say, “Eddie, I love you.” And it was much easier to rest his hand on Eddie’s cheek when he was sad, or bury his face into Eddie’s warm neck when he got cold outside and didn’t bring a jacket, or merely hold on to Eddie’s arm when they were walking down the row of seats at a movie theater, tugging him everywhere he went. That took no effort, none at all, but the words he wanted to stay seemed to get stuck somewhere, not in his throat, because if they were there he’d say them. The words were somewhere else, perhaps in the ground, waiting for their arrival once the promise was broken.

At first, Eddie genuinely disliked being touched by everyone, but especially Richie. Despite this, not even two months passed before his protests sounded genuinely light-hearted, and his body stopped lurching forward when Richie moved near him, stopped reacting so roughly. He was getting used to it, to Richie and his hands and his body, and he knew that Richie wasn’t going to stop. That wasn’t in his nature, that’s how he showed Eddie he loved him. And someone was going to have to make a serious adjustment for things to work out, which was fine because Eddie quickly realized that he didn’t actually mind any of it anyway. In fact, he wanted it, he wanted it so badly he thought he was going crazy, and it was even worse because he had spent his whole life restricting himself from such loving gestures, so now he couldn’t get enough. The feeling of humiliation and embarrassment, and everything negative he associated with his mother’s touches, it all washed away with Richie, and he grew to thoroughly enjoy how much different he felt. How good he felt, how loved he felt. And he was better about it with the rest of his friends, but nobody else really bothered to be very touchy-feely with him anyway, as Richie did enough of that for all six of them combined, and he was like a big, spoiled baby. One who was held so much that he cried when he was put down, and one who wouldn't hesitate to climb his big, long body right on top of Eddie’s smaller, shorter body when they were watching movies on Bill’s couch, just to snuggle, just to say I love you. 

Because Richie and his touches bombarded Eddie’s physical-affection-is-gross-wall at such a young age, he became such a comfort zone for Eddie and what it meant to be physically close to someone. Which is why Eddie never even attempted to touch anyone else, be physically close to anyone else, Richie was all he needed. How could he let down those walls to anyone else, when Richie was right there from the start, and he knew him better than anyone else? Richie on the other hand, he needed more. He couldn’t settle down with innocent arm brushes and innocent sharing-a-bed touches that were uncontrollable, not that he wanted to control them. But he needed more, so he kissed a few girls and he had some fun with a few girls, he ignored the way he felt when he saw that shirtless picture of Patrick Swayze in a Women’s magazine at Keene’s and he kissed another girl instead. Imagining it was Eddie’s lips he was making out with and Eddie’s body he was touching. Eddie knew about the girls, as Richie would tell him when he asked what it was like to kiss people, and he’d insist on showing him how it works, but Eddie always waved him off. Kissing a trashmouth, he said, was the equivalent of smoking a cigarette, and would eventually kill him if he got addicted, which he decided that he probably would, but he didn’t say it out loud. 

Words were a different story, like a whole different book to these two hopelessly-in-love teenagers, and only Eddie had read the pages front to back. Both possessed a quick, witty, sense of humor, and they played off of each other so well you’d think they were best friends in a previous life and already had their jokes written and rehearsed. Eddie’s words were fast, but sounded well-thought out, and he could end in argument in one sentence just by the delivery and the way he formed his opinions. Looking inside of his brain was like looking inside of the biggest library in the world, old books neat and precisely where they need to be, with a few shelves here and there that were messy and unorganized, giving the old place some character. Richie’s words were far more careless, they popped into his head and he caught them with his mouth, not giving them a second to breathe and then they’d die right when they left his lips, sometimes clashing with others and sometimes rubbing people the wrong way. The inside of his head was like an arcade, with noises coming from every direction and colors popping from all over, music and movies leaking through the doors and interrupting anything normal, impressions and crazy voices from every country floating around as if they were falling from the ceiling and getting stuck in the wildness of the atmosphere. There was a special arcade game dedicated to Eddie in the corner, one where he would go to play in the middle of the night and bask in all-things-Eddie. How he smiled and how he looked after a shower and how his eyes lit up when they passed a field of sunflowers. 

Pages on his book were flirty, sweet and soft and suggestive, they could make anyone feel giddy. Especially Eddie, because they were so attracted to each other that it wasn’t difficult in the slightest to compliment each other. He was a big, warm, blueberry pie and the words he muttered so sensually became the steam rolling off of it, the aroma seeped through Eddie’s body and devoured his senses in all-things-Richie. But as soon as he felt that iceberg growing closer, that finish line inching nearer, he’d retreat, and Richie would cower inside of himself like a turtle and pull out something from the Voice arcade game in his head. Something to shield him, something to protect him, a turtle shell, because sinking into the freezing cold water and whatever was on the other side of the finish line were scary and unknown, and he would rather live a life full of hurt with Eddie than a life full of hurt without him, because of him. Eddie was more aware of the iceberg and the finish line and how close they’d gotten, he was more hesitant with the words he said, but if anyone was going to say them, it’d be him. The dynamic had always been complicated, never black nor white, always grey. Never showing up on the paper when you scribbled down a picture, like when you’re drawing on a white piece of paper with a white crayon, a black paper with black crayon, it most likely wasn’t going to show up. But then there were times when you’d switch the crayons and the black one would leave bold marks onto the white piece of paper, shouting at the person holding the crayon, shouting to be heard and to be seen, because it was there, it was apparent and uncomplicated. The black markings on white paper, everyone saw and everyone heard. Apparent and uncomplicated. Just as it sometimes was when Eddie was sitting on the bed beside Richie, looking down at him with the blissful morning sky shining mystically wonderful rays into the room and onto them. The black crayon on the white paper was there and they could both see it, because when can’t you see black crayon on white paper?

Soft hands touched Richie’s bare arm, the one that was resting on his bare chest, moving with his breathing, and warming up when it had company. Eddie’s fingertips, hot and dauntless, inviting themselves in and running along firm, pale skin. While his own eyes watched himself, watched the way his hand directed his fingers through a maze, getting lost and turning them around to etch the patterns into his memory. This connection of their bodies happened out of nowhere, when Eddie reached up to pull the blanket over Richie’s torso, and he grazed the arm he was currently touring like France. Neither of them knew why this was happening, what was going on, or how they were going to stop. How Eddie would stop, because Richie was simply lying there, his heart in his throat and his voice stuck in space somewhere, probably on the moon, over the moon, helping it pull the waves around and helping it light up the night sky. Because he was screaming somewhere, he couldn’t hear it and Eddie couldn’t hear it, but he wished Derry would hear it and wonder who that was screaming so loudly. Then he wanted everyone to know that it’s him and he’s screaming because he’s in love with a boy who is touching his body like he’s never felt anything as exquisite, and that he wanted to marry this boy so that they could do this forever. Eyes glued hard onto eyes, Richie was waiting for Eddie’s to meet his, to say, “There’s an iceberg ahead. Should we turn around?” And he wanted Eddie to say, “I’ve been waiting to hit that thing for as long as you have.” 

Fingers were working determinedly through the maze and they had found a new, unexplored section, near Richie’s collarbone and the base of his throat, and his neck in general. Eddie’s eyes were focused, he was watching the way he dipped into little crevices and the way he maneuvered through tendons and quaint freckles. Divine sunlight sparkling, glowing skin, sleep-deprived brains, lazy eyes, incoherent movements. Lava, because it was hot, they were hot, their cheeks and their bodies, and their skin, everything was hot. Innocent touching went a long way, like they were supposed to be hiking to a crystal clear stream and instead stumbled upon a raging volcano with a river of molten lava. Richie had fallen in, he was burning, and Eddie wasn’t even trying to save him this time, only pushing him further with his own fingers. And it hurt Richie, he was hurting, but he was ashamed at how happy he felt, because it’s lava, it’s not supposed to feel good. 

A bold black crayon on a white piece of paper, a maze of muscles and freckles and bones, the scorching heat from the volcanic lava, and then the fingers moved up, found a harsh bank of jawline, soft nook of chin, and above that, there was a set of soft lips there, seemingly out of nowhere. And a lost thumb found the cushioned, pink beds of roses, and the curious pad brushed along the bottom half of the full, flowered pillowy lip and the world stopped spinning. Opened gates pouring in the blissful, heavenly air of the morning closed, taking the light with it, and everything shut down. The room was dark, grey, the bright blue sky seemingly fell out and was replaced once again with the return of the starry night sky, the moon was gone, though, because Richie’s voice was holding it back. Or perhaps the moon was holding his voice back, because when Eddie’s eyes finally met his for one split second, his whole body was yanked away and he was gone. As if there was a monster there that had pulled him out of his daydream, far from the bold black crayon on a white piece of paper, far from the maze of muscles and freckles and bones, far from the river of lava. Now he was standing at the window, looking up at the sky to make sure the sun was there, to make sure he was alive and hadn’t drowned in a cold ocean after hitting an iceberg or fallen into lava. Richie watched, and he suddenly wanted to cry, because he felt like he had seen the iceberg, the finish line, right there, it was right there. All he had to do was help Eddie cross it, but he didn’t, and here they were, turned back around and heading in the opposite direction. Eddie threw a mere glance at Richie, and he when he saw that he was already being watched, he looked back out the window and mumbled, “I should really get some sleep.”

Not a single word was spoken between them, Eddie climbed into bed and he rolled over with his back facing Richie, and they both fell asleep after another fifteen minutes of yearning, and mourning the loss of what had been happening. And then time moved on, nothing happened, besides the usual old-married-couple bickering and the occasionally serious cuddle sessions, and Richie kissed more girls and Eddie heard about it, but he always got to lay his head beside Richie’s at night and he always got to hold onto him if he wanted to, so he wasn’t insanely fucked up about the girls. When Richie had started sleeping without his shirt on a few months ago, that had been a weird step for them, because Richie liked to be shirtless, but they were always very cautious when that did happen. Like when they were swimming in the quarry and they’d wrestle in the water and brush against each other in ways that’d make them shiver. Or when Richie would get out of the shower and his skin would be red and hot, and he’d sit right beside Eddie on the floor and shamelessly flirt with him while playing a board game with the others. But nothing was as weird as the first time Eddie slept without a shirt on. Justified in doing so, since Richie had been for months, but there was something horrible about the way they were acting, like they’d never even seen each other before. 

The open window was soon filled to the brim with Richie and his long, almost eighteen year old body, and he hopped onto the floor with a bang coming from his beat up converse. At his closet, Eddie whirled around and glared, shooting the words, “Shut up,” across the room and into Richie’s heart. That night was oddly hot, not outside, but in the room, like there were secret fireplaces being lit from every direction, and Richie couldn't keep his hands to himself to begin with. Eddie was pushing him away the whole night, as he tried to do homework and Richie sat there caressing his back, and when he folded his clean laundry and Richie ran his fingers through his hair, and especially when he had given in to Richie’s request that they dance to a slow song, and Richie’s hands found their way right up Eddie’s tshirt. And then they were getting ready to go to sleep, Eddie was standing at his mirror dabbing moisturizer on his face, and Richie was lying in the bed on his back, sprawled out with his arms above his head. He watched the mirror like a TV screen, like he was watching the best movie ever made, like he could’ve sat there all night and wouldn’t feel a single urge to turn the channel. When Eddie finally noticed, he raised his eyebrows and asked, “Can I help you with something?” 

“I want some.” Richie claimed, his eyes low and his voice serious, but a smile slapped across his face like he couldn’t have been happier, so Eddie walked to the bed with a look in his eye and he shoved the container towards his already-shirtless friend, “Some of this moisturizer? Go ahead, but I’m not putting it on you, so don’t ask.” 

“No, no, I want some of you.” 

“Richie-You- Shut up!” 

Laughing, grinning, and just-plain-smitten, Richie took the container from Eddie’s hand, pulled his glasses off and handed them over, dabbed his face with moisturizer, and they sat there in silence while he rubbed it in. After exchanging items, Eddie finished his nightly routine and he sat on his side of the bed, and he peeled his shirt right off. Richie glanced over at the sudden movement, and his eyes stuck there like he was in a trance, watching Eddie’s back bend when he moved to turn the lamp off, his spine and shoulder blades and the hair on his neck- it was all so much, Richie couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak, or think, or breathe. The light was off and his eyes were met with blackness, and the mattress moved down and the blankets rustled, and Richie still hadn’t moved. Eddie mumbled a goodnight, and Richie’s mouth opened, but what came out was nothing close to a goodnight. 

“You are the cutest person I’ve ever seen.” 

The lights were back on and Eddie was looking at him like he was someone entirely different, because Richie Tozier said that, not the British guy or the Irish Cop or Donald Duck, it was Richie Tozier and his deep voice. Eddie was eyeing him, his collarbones on full display, he was giving off some weird sort of light, one that only Richie could see, and he wanted to bottle it up and take it home. Lightning bugs filled summer skies, there was one that shone brighter than the rest, one that the little boy with messy hair and glasses would catch in the palm of his hand and sneak it off to his bedroom. For a while he would take care of it and keep it for himself, but the bug never belonged there, the bug would die if the boy didn’t let him go. So off he went, back into the summer night sky. Not this bug, this bug would only grow brighter in Richie’s care, he just had to catch the damn thing. And he was trying, somewhat, because time was running out. 

Senior year came with college acceptance letters and the furthering of many future plans. Ben was moving to California in three months, Beverly was waiting to hear back from her Fine Arts school in San Francisco, and Stanley got accepted into Yale University. That day was intense, everyone cried and most of them got drunk, except for the Man himself and Eddie baby, and things really started to hit hard. Eddie wanted to go to NYU. Dreaming of New York City, and everyone knew it by the way he thought out loud in the clubhouse, talking about the tall buildings and busy streets, nothing like Derry, Maine. And after a while, Bill seemed to take a liking to the sounds of that, too, and he decided that the city is where he wanted to go. Mike shot all of their feet with his sheep gun when he told them he would stay in Derry with his family. Nobody could understand, nobody tried, and nobody was going to offer to stay with him. They all had to leave. But something was holding Mike back. And Richie was the loose canon, drooling over Los Angeles to everyone else besides Eddie, telling them he would make it big in that city, he knew he belonged there, that’s where he’d grow old and happy. But when Eddie was around he was The Big Apple Boy, New York’s biggest fan, and Eddie beamed at that. Not that Richie was going to ditch him or anything, because he already said he would go with him, and he couldn’t leave Eddie if he wanted to. But he knew that’s not where he was supposed to go. There were plans in his mind, like an ironic map of the New York underground, weaving through each other, trying to figure out a way to get Eddie to California with him. 

Lightning bugs were small and could travel pretty far, and Richie planned on taking his light with him there, just to make the place even brighter. But now he was worried about the fact that he was mildly turned on by the sight of Eddie without a shirt on in bed beside him, and he didn’t know what to do other than toss compliments like baseballs. But Richie has horrendously bad aim, and he smacked Eddie flat in the face when he said, “And it’s my turn to touch you like you touched me that one day, Eds.” 

Liquid blood poured from Eddie’s nose at the impact of those words, bruises already forming and a concussion on its way, and he felt like he was lying on top of an operating table waiting to be cut into. Vulnerable, putting himself into the hands of a surgeon who couldn’t have been more trusted with the job, but he still felt at risk, somewhat scared, because the surgeon was probably scared too. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, neither one reacting in any sort of way. Richie moved like he was going to do it, he was going to touch him, but silence is far from consent and he saw the way the fear oozed out of Eddie’s eyes as if he was staring right into the soul of the devil, and his hand stayed hovering over the patient below him on the operating table. Waiting for permission that he knew he wouldn’t get, it would be too good to be true, like a surgeon waiting for a nurse to tell him what to do next, only to realize that he’s the only one performing the operation. A single soft thumping noise broke the silence when Richie’s hand fell onto the mattress, and he adjusted his glasses quickly before saying, “I’m just kidding, man. Want me to scratch your back?” 

Spread the news around the hospital, because the surgery wasn’t happening anymore and the doctor was sent home, since Eddie nodded and turned around instantly, desperate to turn his back on what he was scared of most. Richie was always kidding. Settling back down, Richie watched Eddie’s body react when his fingertips discovered glowing skin, the way his cunning muscles tensed and the way a shiver down his spine was noticeable even from the outside. There was like a block of ice that raced down his vertebrae, slipping through the dark tunnel and down the narrow backbone, slamming into the bottom of the cliff, and Richie’s fingers felt it all. Trimmed fingernails lightly scraped the youthful, smooth back of his, and then suddenly it was moving too, jerking and straining, like it was choking and was desperately gasping for air, otherwise it would seize up and die right there. Richie pulled his hand away immediately and he pushed Eddie onto his back, as he sat up to get a good look at the tears streaming down freckled cheeks, his eyes met watery brown eyes, and his heart decided to walk straight out of his chest and down the shower drain. The world around them turned dark, not because of the night sky, but because of the light inside of Eddie being gone, being absent, and being replaced with sorrow, pain, something that drove him to tears. Not necessarily everyone’s world turned dark, but Richie’s certainly did, since his was the one whimpering and sniffing underneath him in obvious distress. Richie’s world was dark. Because all of the stars in the sky were hung by Eddie and his light, and without it, without him, there were none. Just a black piece of paper, no white crayon, not even an artist to try to color any pictures, because what was the point if there were no white crayons anymore? What was the point of hanging any stars when they weren’t going to shine? Nothing to color with...nothing for it to show up on anyway, and that’s why there wasn’t an artist. No reason to hang any lightless stars...So the only thing that Eddie and the light inside of him could rely on was the moon. Richie and the moon, hanging the stars back into the sky for Eddie, rather than pushing him to do so himself, like trying to color a picture that wasn’t going to show up, because nobody can manage to keep all of their lights on all the time, at the same time, while helping other people with theirs too. 

“Eddie! What’s wrong? Why are- why are you crying?” The moon stuttered, concerned for his nightly companion in the sky, who wasn’t shining at all, who was hardly even there. Somewhat frantically, instinctively, sweetly, his thumbs swiped at the falling teardrops and pushed them away from both cheeks, only to be knocked back with clumsier, smaller hands. Eddie inhaled sharply, his voice stuck on the moisture inside of his throat, sniffing and coughing slightly, wiping his cheeks with his own palms. There was a mystery zooming through the starless, moonless, lightless sky then, like a rocket ship on its way to the farthest planet it could find. The mystery being that Eddie wanted Richie to touch him, more than anything else in the world and the lightless sky and everything in between, but his mouth wasn’t physically capable of creating the words, and he was overwhelmed by the want and the need and the betrayal he felt because his mouth wouldn’t allow him to have what the rest of him so desperately wanted- Richie. And who knew there were hurricanes in space, because he was caught in a torrential downpour and seriously damaging winds, destroying anything it could find in Eddie’s empty black sky. Making him cry, the rainwater sneaking through cracks that the moon hadn’t sealed properly, flooding through his body and out of his eyes. Now his chest was constricting in panic-stricken agony to find relief, find shelter, find safety, since his whole being was now experiencing such a natural disaster. What a mysterious rocket ship zooming through a lightless space, holding the answers as to why the stars couldn’t just say it, couldn’t just admit to the moon that he was in love with him. The stars and the moon, eternal partners, the best of friends, relying on each other and the light they shared, never-ending soul mates. 

“I don’t know.” The stars breathed, Eddie breathed, but he knew well enough. And so did the moon, so did Richie, and he fell out of the sky as suddenly as the stars did. Since his hands had been swatted away once already, he only nodded and they spent the next minute staring at each other, Richie watching Eddie cry below him, until his own hurricane was beginning to stir up inside of him, and he had to turn away and collapse onto his side once the force of the water and wind hit him. But he cried harder than his dim companion, he quite literally wept, muffled sobs forced into the pillow next to him, because they were supposed to be quiet. Ripping his glasses off and tossing them blindly onto the nightstand, his back towards Eddie and his face hiding, pressing his fingers into his eyes to try to control himself, the hurricane ripping him to shreds. Years and years of yearning, longing, all of the desires and wants, the lusting and the aching, all too overbearing, all too much, and it was all coming out of them both at the same time. The sky pitch black and empty, like the center of the Earth, where they were together, but alone. And then Eddie rolled over, his arm wrapped around Richie’s ribcage, and he rested his head against his back. Slowly the rain eased up and the wind settled down, their bodies regaining any sense of stability possible, aiding each other’s recoveries, together, but alone. Soon, soothing sleep overcame exhausted shoulders, heavy eyelids, swollen cheeks, tired hearts, and they drifted off into the night sky, twinkling stars finding their way back home and the moon climbing to it’s spot in space. Hands were held and so was Richie, nothing could have torn them apart that night, not even the Earth splitting open. 

Not a word was spoken about anything that had happened that night, not until years later. In fact, the next morning was completely normal, except for the way they skipped first period to grab breakfast from the diner downtown, a strained little building situated pleasantly between the ancient Automobile shop and the Bank of Penobscot County. The big glass windows provided a nice view of the courthouse and a hair salon, two places that contained such opposite ambiences, one filled to the brim with old, grumpy white men, and one filled to the brim with middle-aged, upbeat white women, both places that the teenage boys of Derry avoided like the plague. And when Richie flirted with the twenty-something-year-old waitress at the diner, Eddie scowled at him over his plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, which was a very common occurrence between them, since they were both mildly obsessed with each other. The next time she came over to the booth, Richie’s hand found Eddie’s knee under the table and he gave it a good squeeze, after telling her that he was eating with the cutest boy alive, to which she replied with a judgmental expression slapped across her already bitter-looking face, “Oh, so you’re those kinds of boys.” 

And Richie didn’t hesitate to put her in her place, biting something smooth about how bad her makeup looked, and he left her a two dollar tip with a note telling her to buy a different eyeshadow color, and then he bought Eddie’s food and told her that it’s what good boyfriends do. To which she didn’t dare comment on, although Eddie did when they got outside and were driving off in Richie’s truck. The day was bleak and grey...black, leafless trees outlined the pale sky and the winter mood was hitting the town hard, like a storm of bitter cold air and lifeless attitudes swarmed everyone all at once. Walking out of the warm, burnt-orange house was like stepping into a cloud, one with no color, no life, nothing to stimulate a single muscle inside of your body. Winter overcame Maine like a predator and its prey, feeding on the autumn hues, chewing up any sense of cheerfulness it could find, spitting out the remains of a fun-filled, sunny summer that nobody wanted to end. This day was no different, once Eddie walked through the diner door that was being held for him, his hands immediately clawed at the collar on his coat and tugged the protective fabric towards his jawline, and Richie walked closely behind him and let out a dog-like yelp that sounded like Mother Nature reached her own hand out and smacked him across the face. Numb fingers fumbled with the truck keys and Eddie whined the whole time, yanking the door handle, and Richie shouted impatiently that he was trying, give him a fucking minute, don’t you know he’s cold too? Inside the truck he fumbled some more trying to shove the keys into the ignition, Eddie dramatically curled up into a ball and clung to his backpack, and Richie cussed at his own hands, his truck, Mother Nature herself. The heat finally blasted through the vents and at first it was quiet, besides the roar of warm air relieving their shivering bodies, the humming of the engine and the clicking of their seat belts, and then Eddie huffed, “You know, you should stop telling people that you’re my boyfriend, because they’re going to start spreading that shit around.”

“So what?” Richie asked casually, still hunched over, trying to warm his hands before driving away, blowing puffs of air into his palms and sticking them in front of the noisy air vents. And then he put the truck in reverse, checking his mirrors and whipping backwards as smoothly as possible, relaxing against the seat and gaining speed at a moderate rate, acting like the conversation was as nonchalant as ever. 

“So what? You aren’t my boyfriend, Rich, that’s what, and if my mom heard anything like that...oh, God, you would probably never see me again. I think she would chain me to my bed and- and- lock me inside forever.” Eddie sat back in his seat, because he was acting like the conversation was as serious as a marriage proposal, but glancing at Richie’s unbothered face only convinced him to loosen up before focusing his attention outside of the window, on the trees and the houses and the buildings they were passing. Richie was quiet then, mulling things over, wearing a hoodie and jeans and a winter coat that he hated, a friendship bracelet, matching with one Bill had that they made in first grade together, a pair of beat up sneakers and a pair of socks covered in plates of spaghetti. Those damn socks, his Eddie socks, his spaghetti socks, ones that every member of the Losers Club tried to hide from him because he would simply not stop yanking his pant legs up to show them off. 

“Are you gonna hide from people in New York?” He asked, one hand lazily gripping the steering wheel and the other one propped against the window, his fingers resting on his chin. Soft song playing on the radio now, barely audible, because Eddie hated it when Richie drowned his own voice out when he tried to talk with the music blasting. 

“Hide? I’m not hiding from anyone, why are you even saying that? I mean, there will be so many people, so many germs, so many smells...Like, if you think about it, that place is crawling with bacteria. So I guess I can see why you’d think I would hide-”

“But would you try to stop me from calling you my boyfriend there? You know, in a place where nobody else knows us. In a place that nobody would care.” His words were cautious, which was unlike him, and Richie prodded very gently, because he knew what would happen if he poked too hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he checked to see what Eddie was doing, and he looked back at the road with a dopey smile on his face, just because. 

“I’d try to stop you because it’s not true! I guess if it were true, then no. And I do feel like we’d be fine there, at least I wouldn’t be paranoid about being murdered or anything. Because people get murdered here for that stuff. But that doesn’t mean I want you to go around telling new people we meet that we’re dating when we definitely aren’t-” 

“No, definitely aren’t. But hey, tonight when I’m climbing back through your window to sleep in your bed with you, since we’ve been doing that for years now, and you let me borrow a pair of your little tiny boxers so that you know they’re clean, and you scratch my head without me asking because you know how much I like the way it feels...after all of that shit, then let me know who your real boyfriend is so that we can cut it out before he gets jealous.” Richie spewed, like a leaking Dr. Pepper bottle, similar to the one sitting in his cup holder half-empty between them, the one that Eddie scrunched his nose at when he saw it that morning, and Richie ended strongly, with his right hand up in the air, holding his pinky out. 

“I think you would be the most jealous person in that situation.” Eddie pointed out factually, as the truck turned wildly into the school parking lot due to the one handed grip on the steering wheel, causing his body to fling uncontrollably into the side of the door, and causing Richie to scream like he was on a roller coaster. Pulling himself up, Eddie forced himself over the console and threw a punch into Richie’s arm, knocking the expectant hand out of the way in the process as the truck came to a stop, “And be fucking careful! It’s like you just want to risk our lives.” 

“You know what, Eddie-baby, I would be so jealous. Like cry-myself-to-sleep-at-night jealous. But hey, at least I’d have your mom.”


	3. it's the edge of the world

Freight trains of emotions hit the Losers Club in January when Bill turned eighteen, then again in February with Beverly, and then again in March with Richie. Adulthood seemed fit for Bill and Beverly, who were wise beyond their years after childhoods full of trauma, but nobody actually believed that Richie Tozier was an adult, and some believed he might never be. Sure, he drove an old truck and he had a job at the Aladdin Theater, he could buy his own cigarettes and he could vote for the next president, but Richie was nothing but a big kid. With his long legs, large hands, his inappropriate trashmouth and everything that came along with that, just a big kid with a big heart. Only a few more months until he graduated high school, not to mention that his GPA was and had almost always been a four-point-zero, his natural mathematics skills annoyed his friends until they couldn't think straight. But Stanley was just as good at math, if not better, and he was going to Yale to either become an accountant or something to do with technology, he hadn’t quite decided. Ben was also good at math, good at school in general, he grew up taking academics very seriously, as did Stanley. But Ben was a builder, an engineer, he had a natural x-ray vision machine inside of his brain when it came to structures and houses, so it seemed to fit him perfectly when he announced that he wanted to be an architect. Beverly was not very fond of math, she disliked science and algebra and anything involved. Art and music were quite the opposite, especially fashion, and so after hard work and dedication, she was accepted into her Fine Arts school in San Francisco, her aunt already arranging plans for her move back to Portland. Bill felt the same way about math and science, never one with numbers and logic, always one with words and colors. Mostly words, because he grew up despising the way he spoke them and he basked in the way his hand didn’t stutter when writing words onto paper. English, he wanted to be an English major and teach high schoolers in New York City, and he wanted to write a book. Mike didn’t like math, didn’t like science or physics, and he hated chemistry. And he didn’t want to go to college just yet, but when he did, history was where he was headed. Passionate about the past, and the future, which is why he had convinced them all that he would be fine in Derry, had them promise to stay with him when they visited, promised them that he would also visit them.

Eddie only liked math when he was using it as a way to flirt with Richie, asking for help and watching as Richie jumped to his aid, speaking slower and more carefully than normal, so that he understood clearly. More unsure than the rest about what he actually wanted to do, but the most sure about where he wanted to go. New York City, he claimed it first, and he made sure everyone knew that it was his idea and not Bill’s, even though nobody questioned him to begin with. There was something in that city that had a firm grasp on Eddie’s short shorts that he still wore, even at seventeen, even when it drove Richie up the wall, and he was being tugged towards the concrete world of opportunities. And Richie was a lost cause. Talk show host, no, comedian, no, ventriloquist, no, actor, no, news reporter, no. Back and forth, ping pong game of ideas, nothing quite satisfying his wants, his hopes and his dreams. Accepted into NYU, to the grand delight of Eddie Kaspbrak, who squealed when he found out, and didn’t even recognize the robotic excitement in Richie’s voice over the phone. Something just wasn’t sitting right with the whole situation, like he swallowed the Big Apple itself and it got stuck in his throat, or went down the wrong way and uncomfortably scraped his insides before he digested the damn thing. And instead of cold, dull buildings against a cold, dull sky, Richie dreamt of palm trees and golden sand, blue ocean and his favorite bands. Because he had been accepted into UCLA too. California dreaming. 

And Eddie found out. Boy did he find out one night when Mike and Bill were high, passing a joint in between the two of them while Eddie and Ben watched, waiting for the rest of their friends on Mike’s farm, in his big brown barn they had rigged up for hangouts. Bill spilled the beans, or accidentally knocked the whole can over, saying something about how happy Richie sounded when he talked about the Gold Coast and its Eddie-less wonders. Well, to Eddie, he wasn’t there, he had already told Richie he could never go that far away, so no, California might be Richie’s dream, but he would never know that dream with Eddie by his side. And Bill didn’t really understand what he had done, he was answering Eddie’s questions like he had just won a baseball championship and was being interviewed by ESPN. Eddie listened to how Richie wanted an apartment near Studio City after college, close to the celebrities but not too close, not close enough to be one of them yet. How he wanted to drive a red mustang and have a small dog to walk around his block on a leash, how he wanted to skateboard down the Walk of Fame and then go hang out at the beach after a long day in the studio (that was when he wanted to be a band assistant for the Red Hot Chili Peppers), how he wanted to pass the Hollywood sign on the way home and breathe in the California air every night. Los Angeles, the City of Angels, where Richie belonged. And Eddie scoffed, repeatedly, until Bill was done speaking, and then Richie walked through the door and Eddie tried to ignore his existence. 

Because he only sounded extremely annoyed, but in reality, Eddie’s heart was flat-out broken by this, he genuinely believed that Richie wanted to be wherever he was, and to think that he had even applied to colleges in Los Angeles...there was no describing the way he felt, because it was complicated, how could he be upset that Richie wanted to follow his dreams, whether he was apart of them or not? But it still hurt, because the thought of leaving each other made him want to bury himself into Richie’s arms and never let go, never part ways at an airport, never call a random dorm room number and have to ask for Richie Tozier, never have to listen to the desperate I Miss You monologues, never have to be away from each other. Plus, this was his best friend, who hadn’t told him a single thing about this California dream of his. So Eddie shut down after that, because he felt like a vending machine that had malfunctioned, with an angry customer on the other side of the glass pressing the buttons furiously, trying to get it to work. But his light was out, he wasn’t working anymore, he was broken. And then the door swung open and the designated Life of the Party walked through, greeted with cheers from his two influenced friends, and it hurt even worse because he waltzed straight to the damaged vending machine, who hadn’t even batted an eye in his direction, and he plopped down right beside him, unaware of the “Broken” sign hanging up on the glass. Everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor, Eddie with his legs crossed and his head in his hands. Bill and Mike shoved a joint towards Richie, while Stanley and Beverly sat down beside him, and Ben greeted him warmly. But Richie pressed buttons instead, tapped the glass without reading the sign, because he could tell that something was wrong, the lights were off in the machine and he wanted a snack, so he ignored everyone else and focused on Eddie.

“Hey, Eds. You having fun? Big Bill convince you to smoke yet?” He quipped, reaching out without a second thought to run his fingers through Eddie’s hair, because he did that a lot, he liked to mess it all up. Eddie had hardly even looked at him, he merely shook his head, flattened his hair, and looked over at Ben beside him, acting like he was interested in the story Ben was telling. But Richie kept pressing, very impatient without any sort of acknowledgement from his boy, and he poked at Eddie’s ribs until he got a reaction. At last, Eddie turned back towards him, and Richie beamed at the interaction, “Hey, there you are. So later when I come over I need to tell you this story about that girl who used to like you, remember, Leslie Something-or-another, and you’re gonna-” 

“I’m not going to be home tonight.” Eddie said blandly, his eyes seriously locked onto Richie’s for the first time since he’d been there, and it hurt, so he looked away again. Confusion radiated off of Richie’s body, mixing with smoke from Bill’s mouth, intoxicatingly unbearable. The room was cloudy and Eddie hated it, he felt like he was suffocating, he felt like he needed his inhaler, he was choking. And he couldn’t handle Richie’s questions, his confusion, his hands, he couldn’t take any of it, any of Richie in general. Something was seriously burying him alive, he felt like he was lying in a closed coffin underground and could hear the dirt being piled on top of the wood, and he wanted to shout that he was still in there, he was still alive. But his voice was gone, his chest hurt, and Richie was watching very closely, aware of the burial, despite the fact that he was the one encouraging it all along. Because every electric touch, every sweet word, every adoring stare, was only one step closer to a life underground, cold and alone, and alive but useless. Trapped. And even after all of that, when Eddie really felt like he was about to smother to death and his anxiety started to leak out of his body like the same volcano that had erupted a river of molten lava, he glanced over at the curly-haired, glasses-wearing best friend of his and he muttered, “Get me out of here.” 

There must have been an explosion underneath the pillow Richie had been sitting on, because his body sprung itself to his feet in a matter of seconds and he hoisted Eddie up by his hands, and he mumbled something to the others that sounded like, “Be right back,” but Eddie wasn’t sure. The crisp, cool air outside somewhat calmed him down, and Richie was still holding his hand, so Eddie pulled his away and rested his body against the outside of the barn and closed his eyes. Richie wasn’t helping him try to steady his breathing, because he was staring at him so hard someone might’ve thought he was looking at a ghost. 

“You okay?” Richie spoke into the darkness, his breath misty and clearly visible in the chilly night air, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and watched as Eddie tried to recuperate, climb out of the casket, wipe off the dirt. But he said nothing, too overwhelmed to face the aggressor that tried to bury him alive, and Richie rambled nervously, “You ignored me when I got here, what was up with that? And where the hell are you going tonight that I’m not? Did that son of a bitch Bill Denbrough invite you over and not me? And now you’re all anxious and you know how that makes me feel all bad inside, and-”

“Shut up.” Eddie breathed, his eyes still closed and his head still leaned back, begging himself to just get over it, come on, hurry up, you’re fine, but he was having an internal battle that was bloodying up his train of rational thoughts. There was a train conductor who was lost, ran off the tracks and couldn’t find his way back, stuck in a blizzard of anxiety, and Eddie was calling out for him, for the train, but only his own echo was bouncing back at him, no sign of the train or the conductor. Richie stood helplessly to the side, his eyes never left the ball of nerves bundled against the barn, and he wanted to reach out and comfort, do something to aid his best friend, his stars. But he was told to shut up and that’s what he did. Minutes passed by, joyful voices and uncontrollable laughter leaked from the thin barn wall and into the ears of the two lost souls outside, where the crickets chirped and the cows nearby rustled in the field, and the stars that sprinkled across the night sky shone passionately with the moon by their side. The battle inside of Eddie’s body, his mind, grew wild and stronger than before, he was breathing deeply in an attempt to settle down, but his lungs screamed at him, yelling that they needed more oxygen. Casualties and prisoners of war, blood and tears, bombs and crashes, the scene wasn’t pretty, and eventually it became so overwhelming that Eddie clutched at his chest and whined for his inhaler. That’s when Richie had seen far too much for far too long, so he marched forward and grabbed onto a shaking hand, leading the both of them down the long gravel driveway and to his parked truck. Quickly, he opened the door and helped Eddie inside, rushing to get behind the wheel and start the engine. Glancing over, he watched as Eddie sat there oddly calm, like he was numb to everything going on inside of him, and that only enticed him to move faster and tear through the box of mixtapes in his floorboard. Then there was one in his fingers, one labeled, “E.T. Phone Home,” written in sloppy handwriting that screamed Richie Tozier. About thirty minutes passed, as did the battle, as did the bitter feelings from one side of the truck. Music healed all. Richie always said that, anyway. Your Song by Elton John, Lovesong by The Cure, Somebody to Love by Queen, Let it Be by the Beatles, These Arms of Mine by Otis Redding, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. The list could have gone on, and it probably should have, because when Eddie finally turned the volume down and looked over, the bitter feelings returned. 

“You know, some kids who grow up in Los Angeles have never seen snow before, because even in the winter it’s like sixty degrees there. Christmas is gonna suck for you, with no snow and no me, or Bill, or Stan, or Mike. Just you and The Newly Weds, and no fucking snow. Does that really sound nice to you? No snow on Christmas! No Bill, or Stan, or Mike! No me.” The words were rushing out of Eddie’s mouth faster than he could stop them, not that he would have, but there they were and something wasn’t right about them, because they stuck to the windshield like bugs that Richie had to scrape off with a lot of effort. And the confused expression on his face said everything, Eddie let him ponder the situation for a solid six seconds before he blurted out, “UCLA, Richie. Apartment in Studio City, a red mustang and a fucking dog, skateboarding on the stars and going to the beach! In California, where I won’t be. When were you even going to tell me?”

Realization dawned onto Richie’s face like a faulty lightbulb flickering to life hastily, and he broke the eye contact to look somewhere else and adjust his glasses. Everything around them was dark and somewhat eerie, they were a good distance away from the barn and their friends, and everything around them was either thickly wooded or creepily open field. The headlights were on, highlighting rusty old farm contraptions and worn out tires, a brown picket fence followed the driveway to the house, one side covered in dark trees, the other side a vast grassland for the animals. Stars shone bright, the moon shone brighter, which was odd, considering the light inside of the truck was faltering at an alarming rate. All was quiet, since the volume on the radio was turned down, and Eddie watched Richie, waiting for an answer. 

“I just wanted to see if I’d get in. I already promised you that I’d stay with you! So drop it, like really, you get to go where you want to and I’m glad I’m going with you, so drop it and be happy for yourself!” 

“I know you promised, but you can break it, Rich, because you don’t really want to go to New York! How am I supposed to be happy knowing that you aren’t!” Eddie sat up straighter, his voice slightly raised, his hair falling onto his forehead, his eyebrows pulled together. And Richie was so in love, he couldn’t even take anything seriously, because the milky light from the moon and the stars were cascading silkily over Eddie’s features, his lips and his nose, his floppy hair and his mean-looking frown. Richie saw right through that, though, like the architectural x-ray machine inside of Ben’s head, there was one for Eddie inside of his head, he knew what Eddie was feeling, how he was going to react to certain things, what made him happy. Richie knew him like the back of his hand. And he kind of wanted to kiss him. 

“I’m gonna be happy with you no matter where we are,” He said quietly instead, and then something snapped a few shots of sense inside of him and he added, speaking louder, “With the other boys, too. And I don’t like breaking promises, you know that!” 

“But California!” Eddie practically screeched, like he was desperate to have his heart broken right there, desperate for Richie to just admit that he was in love, that’s why he was willing to risk everything under the sun to be with him, that’s why he kept staring at his lips…

“But you!” Richie said just as loudly, flailing his arms up in defeat, watching as Eddie blinked, trying to comprehend anything that he could, trying to grasp at pieces of the puzzle that just weren’t fitting together. “But you, Eddie. When are you gonna get it through that thick little head of yours? I can’t be alone out there! I can’t, I need someone to...to take care of me. And you’ve been doing that for a while now, so...so I can’t just leave your small ass across the country.”

At that point, he sounded defeated, like admitting that took every ounce of energy he had stored and threw it all in the gutter on the side of Mike Hanlon’s house, and he turned away again, fiddled with his glasses again, and suddenly seemed very interested in the beds of his fingernails. 

“Oh. Well, I-” Eddie started, sounding like he was still up for a fight, but he quickly trailed off and ended lamely, “Alright.” 

“You’re just the best friend that I’ve ever had, that’s all.” The beds of his fingernails losing their entertainment-value, and Richie looked over when Eddie very obviously slumped over after hearing those words. 

“Yeah, you’re mine too. That’s all.” He said dully, crossing his arms and staring at his converse in the dark, aware that he was being watched, being careful, like a fish in a bowl on a dresser. But then Richie was leaning over, his jacket rustling the seats, the noise loud in the quietness, and he was so close that he thought that Eddie could surely hear the pounding of his heart, because it was the only thing he could hear roaring around him. Soft lips pressed sweetly against an even softer cheek, while a gentle hand held onto the other cheek, allowing the connection, and the innocent kiss lasted longer than it should have, leaving a lingering burn to scar. Somewhere in the middle of that, Eddie asked quietly what he was doing, and Richie replied simply, “Kissing your cheek.” 

Seemingly unsatisfied, wanting more, he leaned back in and pressed another long-lasting, yet painstakingly short-lived kiss to Eddie’s cheek, this time a little nearer than before. Bodies closer than expected, Richie covering Eddie’s whole being like a blanket, his messy black curls tickling Eddie’s ear, his chest pressed against Eddie for balance, his everything, right there. And then he did it again, the closest he’s ever been, the corner of Eddie’s mouth not even an inch away, and this time his head moved with the kiss, tilting Eddie’s face back with his own lips. Both of their eyes were closed now, Eddie’s hand found a piece of the tshirt hanging off of Richie’s abdomen, their breathing growing a little louder by the second, and the sound of Richie’s lips slowly nibbling on smooth skin filled their ears in a way that blasted cubes of ice down both of their spines. Now he was moving, his lips hovered over Eddie’s for one split second before they landed on the other side of his face, his hand moving to the opposite cheek and repeating the process. Each kiss heavier, louder, quicker, and he reached Eddie’s neck in a heartbeat, open-mouthed at the bottom of his ear, relishing in the way Eddie moved his own head to the side, but when that happened, everything stopped. 

Everything stopped, because once Eddie moved his head he realized what was actually going on, and he made an odd noise, like a noise of surprise, and he shoved Richie away with force. They sat in their own seats for a moment, working their way through what had just happened, and then Richie spoke to the steering wheel, “I’m sorry. I- that was weird. And...I shouldn’t have done that. But I mean, you’re my best friend! And I would- I would totally do that to Bill if he asked. So..are you good? Are we good?” 

Eddie stayed silent, his hands aching to trace the places that were being treated so delicately only moments before, yearning for the feeling, wondering what it all meant. Everything had been building up to a moment like this, like snow on a mountain, waiting, just waiting for something to come along and trigger an avalanche. Sound the alarms, alert the passengers, because the Titanic hit the iceberg, harder than ever before, and the ship was sinking. Richie’s race car crossed the finish line, and his car won, beat Eddie’s, but now they were both stalled at the end of the line and nobody knew how to fix the cars. But Richie even mentioning the fact that they’re just best friends seemed loud enough for Eddie to hear. Brush it off, he was kidding. Richie is always kidding. 

“It’s okay.” Eddie mumbled, his fingers brushing the spot underneath his ear, sweet and golden from a hot, heavy mouth, wanting more and more until he couldn’t handle the pleasure. Because whether or not Richie was kidding, he was working his lips with ambition, there was a reason behind the movements, and it made Eddie feel good, there was no denying that. So he briskly added, “I didn’t tell you to stop...not at first, anyway.” 

“Not saying no doesn’t mean yes, Eds.” Richie stated in a matter-of-fact tone, after hearing that everything was okay and feeling like he needed to establish something with Eddie right then and there. If he didn’t want something to happen then it wasn’t going to happen, simple as that, and it depended solely on him, because Richie wanted everything to happen as soon as possible. Not that Eddie didn’t, but he wanted it at his own pace, which is completely fine, and Richie would rather go home and jerk off to the thoughts of what could’ve happened than make Eddie feel uncomfortable in any way. 

“No, but...but you said you’d do it to Bill. So we’re fine. Right?” Eddie questioned, because if Richie would do that to any of his friends, to Bill, then that deflated all possibilities that they were anything more...

“Well, I guess I’d do it to Bill. I mean, I’ve never really thought about it, like the guy is cute and all but he’s not Eddie-Kaspbrak-Cute.” Richie could see the blush on Eddie’s cheeks even in the shadowed rivers of darkness streaming through the truck, the illumination from the moon an opportunity to steal privacy right out of his back pocket, with nowhere to hide, like he was on stage and the spotlight was positioned to highlight him only. The inky blackness spilled over Richie, he was hidden behind the curtains backstage, his privacy handed to him on a silver platter, and he got to watch the show from a special seat. All alone in his light, Eddie and his burning neck, his aching fingers, putting on a show that required no effort, because his one-man audience would have paid regardless of what he was performing. Which was nothing, because he was sitting there being himself, being raw and vulnerable, his body cut open on the operating table, his skeleton visible through the x-ray machine inside of Richie’s head. And yet he still cheered, still rated the show five stars, still threw flowers onto the stage, because he was in love with the performer, no matter what he was performing. 

“Is he Miss-America-of-cute-boys cute?” Eddie asked lightly, his back pressed against the door, facing the darkness, tracing out the features of his biggest supporter with his eyes, because he was once right right there, joined in the moonlight with his soft lips pressed onto an even softer body, but that was over, he had returned into the shadows. Which is how Richie felt anyway, when they were together they were basking in the light, in the moon, in the stars. When they were alone Eddie shone on his own, and he was merely another silhouette in the shadows of the dark. No reason to shine, not without Eddie. 

“Not even close, baby.” He muttered softly, the last word falling out of his mouth like syrup on pancakes, sweet and warm and irresistible. And he watched Eddie’s reaction, as he looked away and slightly shook his head, pink lips turned up in a shy smile, drifting towards his even pinker cheeks like a buoy on a blue lake. 

“Rich. Don’t call me that.” Eddie whispered, sounding sad and upset with the way the situation was diffusing, the spark from moments before burning out slowly, but he didn’t know how to ignite it again, he didn’t even have a lighter. Calling it a spark was an understatement, as there were flames from a fire growing rapidly, eager to destroy everything in its path, and close to doing so. Before it was put out by someone who would want it back, addicted to the burn.

“Elliot…” Richie whined suddenly, jumping off of a diving board and into his impression of E.T., the one Eddie despised, due to the fact that Richie told everyone those would be his initials once they’re married, “I’ll be right here.” 

Pulling himself out of the darkness, Richie leaned over and pointed right at the crotch of Eddie’s pants, and he waited with a giddy grin on his face for the explosion to go off. Because the best way he knew how to cheer people up was to make them laugh, and Eddie sounded sad, the moment felt sad, something had to be done. And Eddie looked up at him like he just found out Richie was the alien all along, straight from the movie and had been spying on the whole town for ten years, with his eyebrows pulled together and his face turned into a frown, slapping the alien’s hand away and hoisting his leg up as protection. 

“Why would you even- you are just- just shut up! Stop corrupting my childhood for fun.” 

“What else am I good for? Phone home, Eddie-baby, wherever we end up. Let’s go.” And then Richie sat up, restless and scarred from the fire, and he flung the truck into drive and snapped the volume up, allowing a sappy love song to flood the floorboards, immersing himself into the music, singing along horrendously, while Eddie watched with his love-stricken brown eyes. They didn’t go back to the barn full of smoke, full of their friends, no, they went all over town. To the stars. To the moon.


	4. let's dance for a while

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> unlike the other chapters, this one happens all in one single day. and the others cover like months and even years at a time, so it's different but enough goes on that it won't be boring i promise !! and it's like my favorite one so do what you will with that info. it's prom night bitches so get ready for richie tozier being an absolute slut for eddie kaspbrak in a suit

Spring time rolled around and over the hills, over the canal, like a blissful breeze coming home from the ocean, warming the winter-bitten town and bringing painful emotions with it, leaving a sweet and sour taste in everyone’s mouth all at once. Sky bluer and brighter than ever, dotted with soft clouds, fluffy and white...grass and leaves on trees were as richly green as they had been in months, young flowers were finally blooming and becoming rainbow-colored adults, and the Earth was alive and healthy again. Thriving in the yellow sunlight, the golden rays warming its heart, Derry’s heart, because the town dismissed such a ruthless winter and left it forgotten and abandoned, with the coats and the gloves and the scarves, until next November when they were forced to accept it back into its arms. No more racing to the car from the front door because the coldness ate away at your skin, no more bare tree limbs against ugly grey skies, no more dead plants soiling the gardens. Which was fine, which was more than fine, because the scene was old, everyone was tired of winter, and the change was much needed. But the nicer weather and the brighter colors brought an abundance of dark emotions, like how dancing in the rain brought on unwanted colds, the dancing was fun and refreshing, but it came with a cost. A cost that the Losers Club would soon have to pay, the thought of exchanging upcoming heartfelt goodbyes loomed over their heads like a storm cloud. The end of an era at Derry High, the closing of a special chapter in the book of their lives, signaling the real end of their childhood, raining down hard on their skin. But before that, before the bitterness came the sweetness, and before the cold came the dancing in the rain, as the chapter had to be written before it could end.

There was a beautiful sunset glowing from above the night of the senior prom, pink and purple and blue hues slashed into one another, bleeding down below onto the streets of Derry, onto the red-chili-pepper brick high school, onto the paneled shutters of the Kaspbrak house, and into the storm drains on the roads. Vigorous, bold blue holding the sky into place, securely and protectively, like a parent, like a mother grasping onto her child, like she would rather die than let anything bad happen to him. Sweet lavender oozing from its baby blue counterparts, dripping innocently into an elegant flushed pink base, highlighting the strong green fields of grass, the mature buildings downtown, the homes and apartment buildings that scattered the city, turning everything into a whole world of wonderfully vivid cotton-candy. And the sweet setting of the sun did wonders on the boys’ suits, matte black and charcoal grey and rich maroon, and Bev’s emerald green dress, one that her aunt gifted her when she moved in all of those years ago, and one that had Ben Hanscom so far down the rabbit-hole of love that he started looking for the Mad Hatter in Wonderland. 

After a few weeks of serious deliberation about the night, discussing dates and outfits and the importance of even going to the dance in general, they all decided to go together and ignore the fact that graduation was right around the corner and Ben would be moving away shortly after that. When it came to their tuxedos, most of the boys had help from their parents, (and in Mike’s case, his grandparents), with the exception of Bill and Richie, who had to depend on Beverly for help. Maggie Tozier wanted to help, and she tried, but she also wanted to please her son. So when he strutted out of the dressing room wearing a white suit with cartoon PacMan and Dig Dug characters splattered across the entirety of the ensemble, she agreed to buy the horrid thing for him solely because of the grin slapped across his face with it on. And Beverly visibly gagged when he tried it on for her at his house, telling him she’d rather him wear his Spaghetti Socks with a hawaiian shirt and pajama pants than that suit. On the other hand, Sharon Denbrough handed Bill a one hundred dollar bill when he told her about prom, his dad told him not to spend it all, and then agreed to let them take his car to the dance, and that was that. Despite their two-week fling back in middle school, Bill and Beverly still got along exceptionally well, and she was happy to style him for the night, no matter how many times he insisted that he could do it on his own. Everyone knew he would just show up in a boring black tux and he questioned why that would even be a problem, but Bev told him that when he became famous he’d want to look cooler than that in the throwback pictures in the magazines.

The night was there in the blink of an eye, they were all piled into Zack Denbrough’s station wagon, with Mike behind the wheel and Beverly in the passenger seat, dress a silky river of green diamonds, Ben and Richie in the backseat feeling like a million bucks, and Bill and Stan sitting comfortably in the cargo-area of the vehicle, woolen-clad knees pressed together only because they wanted to, not because they had to. Patiently, they waited outside of Eddie’s house with a Nirvana song playing quietly on the radio, because Richie insisted that Sonia Kaspbrak would never let her son in the car with that music blasting through the speakers, especially not with a black kid driving him or a Jewish kid sitting behind him, and especially not with Richie Tozier screaming the lyrics into his ear. That music was corrupting him, she said, like those dirty teenagers, like everything else in the world, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. Nothing to protect him from the damaged kids he’d spent so much time with his whole childhood, he was a goner in her eyes, because he came home talking about moving away with them after graduating, telling her that they weren’t like normal friends, they’d stick together after high school, because Losers stick together, Ma. And she’d haul herself towards him, point a finger towards the door, as if the six friends were huddled right outside of it, and she’d assure him that he wasn’t a loser, they were, and he was only associating himself with them because he didn’t know any better, because they’d corrupted him into thinking he wasn’t good enough for anyone else. But he ignored her insults towards his friends, like he always did, and he’d start talking about her moving with him instead, to make her feel better. And she did feel better, but she still couldn’t do anything to stop him from ruining his life by hanging out with them, the only thing she could do was watch from her window, as her little baby boy climbed into the decently-new station wagon with a bunch of losers cramped inside, plopping himself into the seat behind Mike. Because after all, they were different than normal friends, they were family, and a much better one than Sonia Kaspbrak ever was. 

Everyone greeted Eddie as they usually would, only this time they doused him in compliments about his light grey tuxedo that had soft yellow accents in the bow tie and handkerchief, his hair that was precisely neat, swooped stiffly and firmly with hairspray, his ombre brown dress shoes, and his boy-ish smile that lit up the night sky at their words. Because he looked charming and enchanting and nobody had ever seen him so fancy-looking, the only other time when he wasn’t wearing athletic short shorts and a bright polo or tshirt was the occasional Sunday at church, and none of his friends ever saw him there. The only person who said not one single word about anything was sitting on the other side of Ben, choking on his own tongue and trying to revive himself, trying to force himself into normalcy, but he was having a hard time, practically having a heart attack, he thought. Then Mike pulled the car away and the casual chatter ensued, as everyone wondered audibly about what music would be played at the dance, what they were going to do afterwards, how nice they all looked. Richie continued swallowing his tongue, or his heart, whatever was in the way of his body functioning properly, and he kept desperately peering around Ben to get a good look, to make himself used to how infatuated he felt when he saw Eddie, something he never accomplished. Once they arrived at the school, nobody could avoid the elephant in the room, the elephant in the station wagon, rather, sitting on top of the car itself and screaming shamelessly into the spring-time air, “Richie Tozier Is Not Okay Right Now!”

Because it wasn’t often when Richie shut down like that, with no smart-ass comments about Bill’s tendency to sing the wrong lyrics of a song, or about the way Ben always played an imaginary drum to the wrong beat, or about how Stanley wouldn’t be able to pick Kurt Cobain out of a crowd if the man himself stood up and shouted out the words to Smells Like Teen Spirit in his face. No attempts to tell a good joke, make someone laugh, make himself laugh, nothing. Just a boy in a tux, stealing glances at his boy best friend who was also in a tux, wondering how on Earth he fell in love as hard as he did. And then the drive was over and he was climbing his long spider legs out of the car, his own shiny black dress shoes big and clumsy-looking, his completely deep maroon suit complimented by a jet black tie, all thanks to Beverly, who refused to let him show up looking like a rack of comic books. Standing there looking as stiff as a robot that was turned off, he held the door open for Ben and once his confidant had successfully joined his side, he mumbled quietly, “My hair look okay, Haystack?” 

Wild black curls flew everywhere, melting into the night sky, as if they were trying to break away from their owner and be free where they belonged, because Bev could dress him up and make his clothes look nice for this one night, but she wasn’t touching his hair, not unless they were having a one-on-one sleepover and he was letting her braid it until she wasn’t entertained anymore. Ben looked at him sideways, letting out a somewhat bewildered chuckle, and then looked up at his hair, “Looks fine to me, like it always does.”

Seemingly satisfied with that remark, Richie focused his attention somewhere else, anywhere else, just not on the boy climbing out of the car beside him. The parking lot was full of people, girls wearing nice dresses and boys wearing nice suits, parents taking pictures and teachers trying to control the crowd, and he watched as everyone else gathered around him beside the car, his eyes determinedly stuck anywhere he could put them, his brain stuck on something entirely different. Imagining how he would survive the night when Eddie looked like that, how he was going to play off the fact that he was hopelessly in love, how he was going to have fun when his whole being was aching to touch someone, someone right in front of him. And then suddenly they met up, his eyes and his brain, because he looked down and there was Eddie, basking in the dim light and starry sky, his cute hair and his cute yellow bow tie and his cute freckles, and he was staring up at Richie like he’d never seen anyone so handsome before, with a bright twinkle in his eye and a gentle smile on his face. The whole thing, the whole sight before him just punched Richie right in the gut, as if the fact that he was in love formed itself into its own entity, some kind of beast, some kind of creature, and was simply beating the absolute shit out of his body, like he was a punching bag, like he deserved to be punished for creating such a beast, for loving someone he shouldn’t. 

“Hey. You didn’t call me last night. I was worried you got lost on the way home or something.” Eddie spoke, and the newly-rising-conversation seemed oddly private, like the two of them were standing in a tunnel miles and miles away, away from the distracting noises and distracting people. There was something different about the way he was acting, Richie picked it up immediately, as if the fact that they were both dressed up influenced Eddie’s words, the tone of his voice, and it seemed to be mildly flirtatious, mildly alluring. As if his mouth was a beehive and the words were trickling down his chin like honey, thick and syrupy and sweet, and Richie wanted to stick his tongue out and lick up every drop until there were no words left, only lips. And they stood there for a moment, hands in pockets, in their own secluded tunnel, in their own world, eyes wandering down each other’s bodies, curiously observing the way the collars on their shirts exposed their necks, the way the orange tint from the street light covered their skin in the same honey from their mouths. Once he realized the people around him were alive, that they weren’t actually alone, Richie broke his eyes away from the solid gaze on Eddie’s lips and he took his hand out of his pocket.

“You’re not supposed to talk to the groom the night before the wedding, Eds, didn’t anyone ever tell you that?” Richie teased, nudging the groom with his elbow, causing him to smile a little harder, because even through an enamored stupor, Richie could flirt back, and his words were just as sweet, if not sweeter. And boy did Eddie lick those words right off of Richie’s chin, metaphorically anyway, but still to everyone’s great surprise, he stood up on his tip-toes in his brown dress shoes, grabbed onto the maroon-tuxedo-clad shoulder for balance, and pressed a small kiss right onto Richie’s cheek, right in front of everyone around them and right in front of everyone else in the parking lot. Of course, nobody else noticed, but the Losers Club kept their mouths shut and sent each other all-knowing looks, while Eddie turned towards them extremely nonchalant after such a public display of affection coming from himself, but also extremely giddy at the same time, and he pushed on their backs to herd them inside. Leaving a puddle of Richie Tozier behind them, since he melted under the stars, his whole body trickling down and onto the pavement, leaking right into the storm drain beside him. Face on fire, body stalled like a race car on the wrong side of the finish line, thoughts slamming into each other in his mind, heart pounding through his skeleton, he could have passed out if he let himself. But with cheeks the color of his suit, he composed himself enough to walk behind his friends and into the gym, where he only melted again and again and again, a night full of liquid thoughts containing one solid Eddie Kaspbrak. 

Inside the gym was dark, an empty section in front of the DJ for dancing, tables scattered around, underwhelming decorations hung carelessly about, finger food pleasantly appetizing, students running around in an excitement-driven high on the night. Mediocre music filled everyone’s eardrums, loud enough to sing along to but low enough to hear yourself think, mediocre dancing moved across the wooden floor, boys swinging girls by their hands, girls bouncing on their heels with their friends, boys screaming the words of the songs, people having a good time. Until they weren’t, girls crying over boys in the corner, boys annoyed that the punch wasn’t spiked with alcohol, people who dreaded school dances to begin with. And the mediocre, alcohol-less punch was being downed by the cupful, as Richie clung to the bowl like a baby koala bear hugging his mother. One cup down and he was watching Eddie laugh at something Stan said, another cup down and he was watching Eddie dance with Mike to a Michael Jackson song, and another cup down and he was watching Eddie approach him, which was dangerous, he wasn’t ready. But of course he was, that was his best friend, he was always ready for him, but he was also painfully avoiding the way he felt about him that night, which was only resulting in isolation from his friends. Not anymore though, because Eddie was there, out of breath, neat hair falling onto his forehead, not-so-neat anymore, with his jacket and bow tie left at the table, his white button-down shirt looser than it was at the start of the night, his body stricken with amusement, a beaming smile that seemed to suggest that he was having fun, which filled Richie’s body to the brim with heart-shaped rose petals, until he was practically bursting at the seams with adoration and romance and love.

“Hey,” Eddie breathed out, leaning against the table for support, and he smiled wider when Richie offered him a cup of punch without saying anything, still too overwhelmed to speak. At first, Eddie just held the cup in his hand without taking a drink, he looked at Richie bizarrely, trying to figure out why the Life of the Party had become the Life of the Punch Bowl. But Richie wasn’t paying him any attention, his eyes were following the people, the dancing, the dresses and the suits. Eddie looked away too and shrugged, “I didn’t know you had such a thing for Mrs. Prescott’s punch. You practically came as its date, since you’ve been over here the whole time.”

“I have a thing for someone else. And I’m going crazy over here, Eddie Baby.” Richie said, glancing back towards Eddie, watching as he tilted the cup in his hand to his lips, as his head leaned back ever-so-slightly, as his throat moved and his neck muscles flexed when he swallowed, and as he looked down at the drink, his nose scrunching when he heard those words. Richie licked his lips, as if his tongue would discover the taste of Eddie’s skin right there, his body remained facing the crowd, his head turned towards Eddie, his right hand thumbing the knot on his jet black tie and the other one in his pocket, fingering an unused cigarette, he raised his eyebrows at the reaction, “What? You don’t like the punch?”

“Too much sugar.” Eddie said glumly, handing the punch back, holding it against Richie’s chest, while his fingers abandoned the cigarette in his pocket to grab the styrofoam cup, even though there was a perfectly good table to put it on behind them, and even though he had a free hand near his tie already available. Perhaps he just wanted to feel Eddie’s hand pressed against his body for a second longer. 

“Hey, you never told me that you have a thing for someone. Just like you didn’t tell me about LA! I’m starting to think you have another best friend around here, Rich.” Eddie blurted abruptly, sounding defensive and possibly somewhat jealous, crossing his arms and looking towards the table where the rest of the Losers were sitting, taking a break from dancing.

“Try five.” Richie laughed, and he followed Eddie’s stare towards their friends, laughing and smiling and happy, and then he looked back and he saw that Eddie wasn’t laughing, smiling, or very happy, so he added hurriedly, “I was messing around! I only have a thing for Patrick Swayze, you know that! And you’re my number one best friend, always. Just haven’t heard any songs worth dancing to yet.” 

In all honesty, Richie hadn’t even paid much attention to the music, which wasn’t usually in character for him, but he couldn’t help himself, all of his thoughts were blocked by the boy beside him. Eddie, looking up at him with big brown eyes, waiting for something...and Richie realized that he needed to pull himself together, pull himself back to reality, because soon there would be no Losers Club to dance with anymore, and he was wasting the night away on the idea that one day he would get married in tuxedos to Eddie Kaspbrak. 

“What? You want me to dance with you?” He asked, delighted by Eddie’s reaction, the relieved smile and the eager nod, so he downed the rest of Eddie’s unfinished punch and tossed it into the trash can beside him. Unbuttoning his maroon blazer, he cleared his throat and put on a deep, powerful voice, “Rally the troops, General Kasprbak! Captain’s orders, you know who that is, right?”

And even though Eddie’s eyes followed Richie’s fingers, the ones slowly unbuttoning the suit jacket, his lips tugged into an amused simper, and he nodded again, “You, of course.”

“You’re supposed to say ‘Sir, yes, sir. You’re the captain, Richie.’ but I’ll let it slide this time. Let’s go, before they start playing a slow song and I have to serenade you or something.” He winked and slung the jacket across his shoulder, letting Eddie and his blushing cheeks follow him to the table, where Bev scolded him for wrinkling the blazer and where they all bombarded him with questions about why he was at the punch bowl in the first place. Once he convinced them that he was merely standing there because he had the perfect view of Karen Wallden’s ass in her tight prom dress, he shoved his fingers through Eddie’s hair and tossed it around, ignoring the protests and the attempts at being pushed away. 

The dance floor was a world of its own, like stepping into a bubble where everything that happened would stay there, like the hard floor would catch lingering touches and dripping feelings, like the music pulsing through people’s veins drove them to act differently than they would outside of the bubble. A world full of neighboring countries and cities, touching and becoming one for the night, creating their own Pangea. And while Captain Richie called for the rallying of his troops, they were hardly needed for a battle, but for a celebration instead. A celebration of the life together they’d lived so far, one that was slowly dying, but would never be completely gone, regardless of the distance between them. The Losers Club was ingrained in their souls, wherever they’d go next the remains of friendship, family, love, support- it would all be there, maybe not on the surface but just below, and it would never leave. Dancing, singing, laughing, all beside each other, all together, all happy. 

Occasionally, Richie and Eddie bumped into each other, with Richie flailing wildly into the air, screaming song lyrics and other profanities that he could, just because the music was loud and he felt like he could get away with it, and Eddie jumped around him, grinning and laughing. They would bump, sometimes purposely and sometimes not, and they’d grab onto each other in order to stay on their feet, Eddie holding Richie’s waist, Richie holding onto Eddie’s shoulders, and they’d stay like that for a second that happened so fast that nobody else would notice. Make eye contact afterwards, do it again, and then Richie would turn towards the others, try to make Mike laugh, try to make Stanley roll his eyes, try to make Bill embarrass himself. But they’d always link back up, touching and feeling, and then the lights dimmed and the music slowed. A few people groaned in annoyance and a few squealed happily, as boys and girls connected together, as the romance walked into the room, settling right onto the dance floor. Bits of it must have followed certain people, though, because Richie and Eddie snuck off to the bathroom, since Richie had about four cups of punch to take care of, and there seemed to be more romance in the hallway with them than there was between all of the couples in the gym. 

“I’m fucking busted,” Richie moaned, stepping out of the bathroom door buckling his pants, and Eddie stood up from his seat against the wall, eyes flickering towards the belt intertwined between Richie’s long fingers as he continued, “We’re gonna sleep fucking  _ good _ tonight. Unless you want to spice things up, expand our boyfriend horizons.”

The slow song played shamelessly from the gym, slightly muffled and slightly distant, but they could hear every word, every cord, every beat, and it even seemed louder to them, with nobody around to quiet down the love pouring from their mouths. Richie finished fastening his belt with a tap, smirking at the face he knew Eddie had pulled together, waiting for the typical response about how they aren’t boyfriends. But there was nothing, there was silence, and he looked up curiously, at his supposed boyfriend, who was staring right at him, fiddling with his fingers. 

“Earth to E.T.! Where’d that cat go and why did it take your tongue?” Richie asked, immediately cackling at himself, shoving his hands into his pockets because he didn’t know what else to do with them. Glancing around, Eddie started to avoid eye contact now that Richie wasn’t distracted with his pants, and he forced out a laugh. But he wanted to dance, he wanted to be held and be safe in Richie’s arms, he wanted the closeness and the intimacy, he wanted Richie. Even though they danced at home sometimes, in their bedrooms, away from the world, close and intimate without acknowledging it, he wanted to dance. And maybe because Richie could read him like a book, maybe because their eyes spoke to each other in ways their mouths never could, maybe because he loved the song Take My Breath Away, there was no hiding it, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe he wasn’t even trying hard at all. 

Silently, Richie made the connection and he glanced along the empty hallway too, and he looked back, “This is your song, huh?” 

Quietly, Eddie nodded, fiddled some more with his fingers, and Richie swallowed hard, pulled his hand out of his pocket and reached it out, despite the fact that it felt like lead weighing him down, and he asked softly, “You wanna dance with me?”

Without words, Eddie agreed, he nodded again and his hand slid into Richie’s, letting himself be pulled forward, letting himself fall under a trance. And he still hadn’t made eye contact, still hadn’t found the courage, because the way he was feeling scared him, and he imagined looking into Richie’s eyes would expose him, not only to Richie, not only to himself, but to the world. So he rested his head against Richie’s chest and they swayed along to the song, hallway dark and music distant, heartbeats loud and somehow also nonexistent, because neither one of them could breathe, yet somehow they were breathing far too much, choking on the air they were sharing. Everything they felt contrasted, like how their bodies against each other felt so right, but they knew it was wrong, they shouldn’t be doing this at school, in public. Wanting more of each other, but also wanting to stop, because the more they got the more they wanted, never satisfied, but at the same time overwhelmed with satisfaction. The main thing to take away from this situation was the fact that they were together, alone, not together  _ but _ alone, together  _ and _ alone. Finally, Richie felt like maybe he never was alone, maybe Eddie had felt it too, and after all of those years, he felt a sense of comfort knowing that at least they were dancing together at prom. At least they would probably go to Richie’s house that night and fall asleep beside one another, holding hands, in each other’s arms. Regardless of the technicalities, whether Eddie truly did reciprocate even a tiny bit of feelings for him or not, there they were, dancing in the hallway at school, and that was better than nothing. That was everything. 

Just two boys, one tall with curly hair, his hands firm on the shorter one’s waist, leading his feet into a dance that followed the rhythm of the music, moving their bodies slowly around the hallway, head resting against chest, arms wrapped around shoulders. The lockers and the tile were dark, the lights were off and there was a dim light coming from the huge glass windows down the walls, but something lit them up inside, so strongly that whatever it was busted through them, showering their forms with a beautiful, champagne-colored luminescence. Strangely bright, yet oddly mellow, they were surrounded by shimmering, glittery rays beaming down upon them, following their movements. Innocent and angelic, as dancing so often was, until the colors changed darker, red and violet, drastically different from innocent and angelic...

Clutching hands loosened when the song eased to an end, but Richie only grasped tighter, never wanting to let go, never wanting it to stop, and he wondered why his partner was so quick to separate just because the song was over. Eddie had lifted his head up, and Richie only took that opportunity to shove his face into Eddie’s neck, but the song was over, someone could be coming out into the hallway at any second, it was a disaster waiting to happen. As if the weather-watchers were outside, using machines like the one in Twister, scanning the sky for tornadoes, ones that they knew were on their way, and they needed to alert the public that trouble was ahead. But then something from above, perhaps from the same place that sent the raining champagne-colored light around them, heard the pleads coming from Richie’s head, his desperate thoughts, begging someone to make it last longer, he couldn’t let go yet, because another slow song played. The perfect excuse to hang on tighter. Never let go. Forever Young by Alphaville. Lyrics hitting too close to home, practically reaching from the speakers themselves into Richie’s heart, pulling on the strings, toying with his emotions. Life moves on, whether you’re ready or not, and Richie was simply not ready. He wanted to take Time out of his pocket and stomp it into the ground, stopping it from ever moving again. He wanted to stay with his parents and sleep in Eddie’s bed every night, forced to whisper, forced to be a secret. He didn’t want Ben to move away, he didn’t want to wait to see Bev for months at a time, he didn’t want Mike to stay in Derry alone, he didn’t want to go to New York...but he didn’t want to leave Eddie. He didn’t want to grow up, he wanted to stay young forever. He wanted to stay young in Eddie’s arms, forever. 

And he didn’t move, because somehow nobody interrupted them, which was a miracle in itself, and then I Wanna Be Your Lover by Prince started playing, louder than the songs before, and the sexual tension busted through the gym doors like a bomb went off on the other side. Richie peeled himself away immediately, screeching along to the high parts as off-key as humanly possible, moving his hips and his shoulders, holding both of Eddie’s hands and swinging them around recklessly, until he shut up and went back to burying his face into Eddie’s neck. Cuddled up like the big baby he was, his hands wandering around Eddie’s back, his sides, breathing in Eddie’s skin, his cologne...the red and violet lights were back and glowing more powerful than ever, the mood slowed and everything became more sensual, more serious...and then Richie realized that he wanted to take a bite right out of Eddie’s neck, and whether it was the music, the state of their isolation, or just the boy in general, he leaned forward and pressed his lips right against the base of Eddie’s jawline. Slowly, painfully, he pulled away about an inch or two, and in that time span he memorized every nook and crevice of the skin below him, allowing his eyes to squeeze shut and his mouth to fall back, connecting with a warm muscle near Eddie’s throat. Lustfully, hungrily, he moved with reason, with purpose, his left hand held Eddie into place by his waist, his right hand on the other side of Eddie’s neck, and his mouth grew anxious, moving quicker and quicker with each kiss.

Meanwhile, Eddie was trying to focus on stopping him, and he kept frantically glancing at the doors, but then the hot mouth stuck to his neck hit such a sweet spot, made his legs feel like a balloon full of water that had popped all over the white floor, and he had no choice but to grab onto Richie’s shoulder and the back of his neck for support. Black curls fell through his fingers, material of the black button-down dress shirt bunched in his fist, his eyes being forced shut, otherwise they’d roll right out of his head. With Eddie falling into his body that way, no resistance or objection, nothing to stop him, Richie was thoroughly enticed to continue and allow himself to let the situation escalate. Passionate, pink lips against olive-toned skin, his mouth was opened now, eager to taste more, desperate to  _ feel _ more, his tongue fell out, landed on the same spot that caused such a reaction just seconds ago, and rigorously massaged Eddie into oblivion. But he moved, somehow he knew exactly what he was doing, and his mouth sucked small, sweet marks underneath Eddie’s ear, under his jawline, near the base of his throat. And then he ran into a barrier, a cloth barrier that was the collar of Eddie’s white button down shirt, blocking the rest of his body away from frantic lips. Richie’s fingers left Eddie’s neck, because if he had moved his other hand Eddie would’ve just fallen over onto the floor, and his fingers began pulling at the material of the shirt collar, tugging it aside for more access, huffing in frustration when he wasn’t getting any more, because that’s all he wanted, all he could think of, more, more more. More Eddie.

And then he pulled away quickly, glancing up towards Eddie’s face, checking on him, only to see that his eyes were still closed, his hand still lost in a mass of hair, and Richie’s fingers worked even more furiously at the buttons on Eddie’s shirt. Feeling himself yanked back up, Richie’s head followed Eddie’s silent demand for his return to his neck, and he walked their bodies backwards a few steps until Eddie’s back was up against a solid locker, so that he could use both hands for the buttons without depending on Eddie’s ability to support for himself while his neck was being made out with. The whole thing was simply unimaginable, but they were both in such a state of shock that they weren’t even questioning themselves. Everything moved in fast motion, it was all happening so quickly, they weren’t aware of anything else around them. Just each other. And Richie’s heart almost failed, almost stopped working right there when his teeth grazed damp skin and Eddie let out a quiet, yet Earth-stopping whimper. Forget the Earth, Richie was crumbling then, he had no idea how his fingers were even working, but they were, and they were working fast. First and second buttons undone and lips traveled south, near the newly-exposed collarbone and bare skin that was finally breathing. Third and fourth buttons undone and things were really starting to heat up, speeding towards a place that they’d never been to before, Richie’s mouth was open against Eddie’s ribcage, hot, greedy, and even sloppy, because he was so overwhelmed, so overstimulated, with the dark hallway and loud music, the thought of a room full of hundreds of people right beside them, the warm body under his touch. And he was halfway done with the buttons then, Eddie’s eyes still shut and his hand still firmly hiding out in Richie’s hair, and then the gym doors flew open and the glass windows around them seemed to shatter, taking all of the air in the building with the glass on the floor. 

Music boomed louder with the opened doors, voices and noisy chatter filled the hallway, brand new lights from inside the gym flooded the darkness, and Richie reacted faster than a clap of thunder following a strike of lightning, pulling Eddie by the collar of his shirt off of the locker and whirling him towards the bathroom door. Once inside, he swiftly turned them back around and gently shoved Eddie’s body against the door, instantly returning to his spot, determined to carry on, unbuttoning the last button smoothly and yanking the shirt out of Eddie’s pants, where it was so neatly tucked in. Now Richie’s hands flew towards Eddie’s bare torso, grabbing his sides and rubbing onto them sweetly, his head bent from kissing a trail down the smooth chest, stomach, and he reached just under Eddie’s belly button when he pulled away, not entirely noticing that Eddie wasn’t even touching him back this time, and he breathed, “Eds,”

Numbness slammed into Eddie’s body like a boulder, and he was trying to steady himself from the impact, because he had just been feeling everything all at once, and suddenly he felt nothing. He felt nothing. A mumbled, “mhm?” was the best response he could give, which wasn’t that great, because Richie ate it up, kissing onto his stomach again with such a burning passion, one might’ve thought that there was actual smoke rising from lips. But he pulled away to repeat himself with a different tone, a needy tone, whining, “Eds!”

“What?” Eddie said, sounding impatient, sounding like he was talking to Richie when he was nagging him about hanging out after school, or about scratching his head before bed, and he definitely didn’t sound like he was talking to the same Richie that had his mouth leaving strings of wet and possessive, meaningful and loving kisses down his body. But Richie didn’t notice, or he didn’t mind, he merely stood up, looked down and smiled. 

“I just love you.” He muttered, bringing his hand forward to move a piece of floppy hair out of the way of those brown doe eyes, and he tugged Eddie to him, wanting a hug, wanting to calm down and just hold each other. There was a ringing noise in the bathroom, coming from somewhere the eye couldn’t see, but the music was so low inside of the bright, pale blue tiled walls that it was practically nonexistent. Eddie’s eyes followed the dirty looking stalls and the checkered tiles on the floor in search of the noise. Because anything he could find that linked him to reality, he was going to cling to, since whatever was happening couldn’t be real, he was surely dreaming the whole thing up in his head. Maybe he was actually sitting at the table in the gym, alone, while Richie stood at the punch bowl looking at that girls ass. Or maybe Richie and his big body was actually hugging onto him, and maybe he was actually hugging back, and maybe they were in love. 

But there was a sudden force pushing against him, against them, as someone was trying to enter the bathroom, and Eddie shoved Richie off of him in a matter of two seconds, and flung himself into the closest stall to button his shirt back up. All he could hear was a skeptical voice, one that he recognized, but didn’t know well enough, and he heard Richie’s excuse as to why he was in the bathroom against the door, something about smoking his cigarette in peace. And then the voice used the bathroom, washed his hands, and left with the door banging behind him. The stall door shook violently, loudly, and Eddie had just tucked his shirt back in properly when he yelled at Richie to cut it out, flicking the lock and watching as the door swung back. Tall and lanky, wild hair and plump lips, shirt a hot mess, hands itching to return to other places, Richie stood there with that same old grin plastered across his face. 

“Do you love me?” He asked, holding his hand out, testing the waters, because they had just been doing some very more-than-friends type of activities together, and now there was a weird wall between them, one that had to be poked and prodded for them to know how to get around. Eddie stepped forward, head tilted up to look at his companion, and he reached out to straighten Richie’s tie, which made Richie feel tingly inside for all of the wrong reasons.

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t love you?” Eddie mumbled irritably, because for whatever reason he was ticked off, annoyed, he guessed he missed the moments when his body was being kissed into oblivion, when he wasn’t thinking about anything else except for a trashy mouth and big hands that were soft for him, but he also wished that Richie would stop messing with him like that if he didn’t mean it. And...of course he didn’t mean it, they’re both boys for fucks sake, he couldn’t mean any of it. Boys who kiss other boys don’t belong in Derry, Sonia Kaspbrak always said, despite the thumping of her anxious son’s heart, despite the thoughts he had running through his mind in the shower, despite everything about her son and the way he felt about stupid boys with stupid glasses and a stupid heart of gold. Which always brought on the feeling of victory, the feeling of rebellion that trumped the feeling of guilt, feeling ashamed of himself when he was half-naked in his bed beside a half-naked Richie Tozier, scratching his head until he fell asleep. Boys who kiss other boys don’t belong in Derry, Sonia Kaspbrak always said, despite the fact that her son was one of them. 

Ignoring the way Richie’s grin faltered in the slightest when he heard the word “friend” and the way he fiddled with his glasses, Eddie moved past him and grabbed a paper towel, opened the bathroom door with it covering the handle, and held it open. Richie blinked, shrugged, and walked through the open door with a soft word of thanks, and they returned to the gym speaking only a few words to each other. Something was off in the hallway, Richie could feel it when he joked about long they’d been gone and how they could act like they were fucking in the janitors closet, because according to him, that would realistically be Eddie’s worst nightmare. But Eddie hardly even cracked a smile, he was on a mission to get to the others as quickly as possible, and once that happened, he was stuck to Bill’s side like Johnny Cade and Ponyboy Curtis. Inseparable for the rest of the night, where Bill went Eddie followed, what Bill said Eddie agreed with, and Richie wasn’t jealous or anything, but he was kind of jealous. After slow dancing with the kid and going to town on his neck, you’d think Eddie would be attached to his hip, not that Stuttering Bill Denbrough’s hip, or any part of him for that matter. He was just confused. 

The confusion remained lingering in the air like a sickness, the distance Eddie had put in between them a protective suit against said-sickness, and then the dance was over and they were once again piled in the Denbrough station-wagon, this time with Richie driving and everyone forcing Eddie to sit in the passenger seat. Rowdier and more drunk on the night of carefree, teenage adolescence, the rest of the Losers were singing songs, picking on each other, the usual, and Eddie chimed in occasionally, defending Bill when Stan said he couldn’t dance to save his life, singing along to Crazy For You by Madonna. Richie stayed quiet, acting like he was focusing on the road, acting like he didn’t feel as though he ruined the best thing that he had, acting like he didn’t want to burst into tears right there. Because he felt helpless, being pushed away if he even tried to talk, to touch, to do anything, Eddie was shutting him out and he was banging to get back in. When he tried to turn the radio down, Eddie turned it up louder. When he turned right without using his blinker, Eddie yelled that the car behind them could have crashed into them, even though the car was so far back that it didn’t even matter. And then they were at his house, dropping him off first, and everyone chanted their goodbyes from the back, and Eddie glared at Richie the whole time, ignoring them, until Richie looked over at him.

“Aren’t you going to walk me to my door?” He asked, sounding oddly sweet and oddly innocent, and he watched as Richie unbuckled in an instant, said goodbye to his other friends, and got out of the car. The short walk to the front door was quiet, Eddie walked behind Richie the whole time and once they were at the door, he turned and they were facing each other, while his hands hastily tore off his bow tie, hastily began unbuttoning his jacket, undoing his belt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Richie asked cautiously, watching the movements closely, wondering what the hell Eddie was doing, and why he liked it so much. 

“Messing myself up. If my mom’s awake then she’ll lose her shit seeing my clothes all fucked.” Eddie shrugged, pulling the belt cleanly from the loops, and he tossed his jacket across his shoulder, the fabric around his collar yanked down and exposed his neck area, where there were tiny pink marks scattered about. Richie’s eyes widened and his fingers shot to the skin, like a bullet, ripping and wounding wherever it landed. Eddie smacked his hand away, eyebrows furrowed, but that was normal, that was just Eddie. 

“But there are-” Richie started, motioning towards his own neck instead, and he was about to finish his sentence when the front door swung open and they both jumped back at the sight of Sonia Kaspbrak in the doorway. 

“Eddie! Hurry on inside now, it’s getting chilly and you’ve been standing there for too long!” She barked, not giving Richie a second glance, even though he looked quite nice, no ugly shirt or band tee, anyway. Eddie nodded at her and mumbled that it’d only be another second, so she shut the door and he looked up, “Why don’t you just stay home tonight? I bet all of that punch is going to hurt your stomach.” 

“If that happens then I want to be with you, unless you don’t want me to or something.” Richie looked down, gazing at the disheveled outfit with a concentrated expression on his face, wanting to mess it up more, wanting to leave more marks on Eddie’s skin, imagining the way he had been doing both of those things an hour ago. 

“It’s not that I don’t want you to or anything! I do, I swear, but...I’m just tired.” Eddie scratched his head, looking around the porch for help that he wasn’t going to get, and he didn’t want help anyway, because he didn’t want to say it to begin with. But that lie was lame, as there were nights when they were both so tired that Richie climbed through the window and collapsed beside him and that was it, they would fall right asleep together.

“Me too! So go ahead and go to sleep and I’ll be extra quiet with the window, I promise.” His voice serious, eager, impatient, Richie didn’t understand what was going on, he didn’t understand why he still wanted to push Eddie against the side of the house and finish what they started in the middle of all of this, he just didn’t understand anything.

“Maybe you could stay at Bill’s house. You like his bed!” Eddie suggested desperately, he didn’t know how to tell Richie that he was in pain, he couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t do  _ them _ anymore, not with the feelings he had expanding inside of his body, begging to be dealt with. All he knew was that he needed to put a stop to the thing that started it all, and they didn’t need to sleep together anymore. Little did he know, sharing a bed wasn’t what started it for Richie at all, no, and that was far from it, because regardless of where they slept, Richie was in love with Eddie like there was no other boy on Earth. Through anything, through everything, he was in love from the start. 

“Sure I do, but I like yours more. But okay, if that’s what you want.” He was frowning now, and Richie hardly ever frowned around Eddie. How could he, when the happiness inside his body seemed to explode all over the place in his presence? They had been standing unreasonably close during that whole interaction, the Losers in the car were probably watching, waiting for them to kiss, and Sonia Kaspbrak was probably watching from the window, waiting to attack the both of them. But they didn’t kiss, only backed away slightly, realizing that if they wanted to kiss, it wouldn’t have taken much. And Richie tried to look happier, tried to smile, because he felt like his sadness was rubbing off on Eddie, he could tell by the way he was moving, the way his eyes cried without tears, the way he was blue without resembling the color in any way. 

“It is what I want,” Eddie gulped, round eyes sparkling with regret, “But I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And with that, he walked through the front door and he was gone. The moment was over and Richie had to leave. After taking everyone else home and smoking his cigarette with Bill, a few hours later he climbed in his own bed, missing the warm boy usually laid up beside him, who was in his own bed missing the same thing, and they both slept horribly that night, feeling more alone than they had in years. 


End file.
